Turn Left! I'll Show You Turn Left!
by cassikat
Summary: What if Donna had been a little faster? What if she'd actually had a chance to talk to herself? What would happen then? AU of Turn Left, very angry and rather dark.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: BBC owns Doctor Who. I'm just mucking about with what-ifs.

AN: I was working on other variants of Turn Left for other stories, and suddenly it hit me: What would it be like if Donna actually got to go shout at herself to turn left? And then this was cooked up.

With a lot of unresolved anger issues that popped up, because the whole 'let's send Donna back in time too far away to intercept past-Donna' incident really looks like Rose was setting up a murder-by-proxy. Rose showed no signs of exertion when she came to say those last words - she popped right to where Donna was dying and didn't have to run anywhere. With precision like that, why didn't she bring from Pete's World any old technobabble doohickey that would give their cobbled-together time machine something close to the accuracy of the dimension cannon?

There are two logical conclusions from this train of thought, and this story follows the darker one - that Rose wanted Donna dead because she was/is competition for the Doctor's attention. The other conclusion - that Rose was of the honest belief that Donna had to die to fix everything - will be followed up some other time, in another story.

As for Donna actually making it to herself in the nick of time...well, fear works wonders in pushing the body beyond it's limits. So does rage, and Donna had a lot of that building up.

Rose fans, this is your last warning. Turn back now, because you won't enjoy this and I'd rather not waste my finite amount of internet-time mocking and deleting flames.

This fic is rated M for safety, because there's a lot of foul language and a murder.

* * *

Turn Left?! I'll show you Turn Left!

* * *

Despite the delight of having made it back in time and seeing everything like it used to be, Donna felt uneasy, like something had gone wrong. Then she properly took in her surroundings and realised why. "...this is Sutton Court!" She gasped. "I'm half a mile away. Half a mile away!" She shouted at the air, furious that the bitch that had been interfering in her life had done this to her, when she popped up so conveniently anywhere she wanted, at all the right times. Bloody blonde bint...if she ever got her hands on her again...

She checked the watch they'd given her and whimpered when she saw the time. "9:57. Four minutes to make half a mile...oh my God."

She took a deep breath, braced herself, then took off running. If she was really so special, if this Doctor thought she was all that and a plate of chips, then she was going to prove she really was. She was bloody damn well going to make it to herself and force herself to turn left even if she had to stand in the road and dare herself to kill herself to keep herself from turning right.

She ignored the confusion of that thought and ran as hard and fast as she could, though her lungs were already burning. For once in her life, Donna thought as she dodged pedestrians, she was going to prove she wasn't bloody worthless. Wasn't just a temp. She had her mum's stubbornness, after all. And she was her dad's Ginger-Snap, her granddad's Little General, and the two best men in her life had told her over and over that she could do anything. So she was damn well going to fix everything and prove them right.

She flung herself across an intersection by leaping up onto a car bonnet and jumping car to car until she hit the other side with a stumble, keeping herself upright by sheer force of will. It wasn't just the desperation to keep the last two years from happening that was fuelling her. Oh no. It was also a lot of pent-up rage that was fuelling those long strides and making her push people out of the way when she couldn't dodge them.

Fury at that bint was there, oh yeah it was. But there was so much built up underneath just that. Every time she'd held her tongue when her mum went off about her being a failure, every time a boyfriend had been stolen, or decided he was coming out, or just decided she wasn't good enough. Every time she thought she had a permanent job, only to be replaced by something younger and prettier and less likely to object to having her arse treated like public property. All that and more fuelled her run, and she didn't stop for anything.

Except once, at an intersection too big for the trick with the car bonnets, where she leant on a lamp post and sucked in huge lungfuls of air. Absently she checked her watch and her eyes bugged out. She'd nearly got where she needed to be in just two minutes! Two minutes, when she'd never been able to run a half-mile in six, much less four! As the light changed in her favour, she took off again with a fierce grin on her lips. She was gonna make it! She was going to get herself to make the proper turn, and then she was going to strangle that peroxide tart. Just two blocks to go and some shouting to do.

And there was the car. And oh God, there she was, along with Mum...she couldn't believe how normal and healthy they looked! Feeling faint at the impossibility of what she was about to do, she stumbled over on wobbly legs and knocked on the car window.

The window was rolled down a bit, and, without looking, Donna said. "Sorry, no spare quid today." Then a gasp from Sylvia in the passenger seat made Donna look to see who had knocked, and they both gawped at an older, shabby Donna who looked like she'd been on short rations for a long time. Donna stared, eyes huge, and breathed. "Oh. My. God."

The older Donna glanced at her watch - 10:00 and some seconds - and snapped. "No time for arguing. Donna, ignore Mum and turn left if you don't want to end up me in two years. Mum, just shut the hell up for once in your life. All your nagging makes me sick, but I've held my tongue cos you're my mum and I love you. But I've had nearly two years of hell with this building up and I'm gonna have my say!"

She took a shaky breath, braced herself on the car door, and continued. "All the time you nag about how I never have a permanent job, and you never once asked why, and now I finally get my say. It's cos the bosses never give a damn about how skilled a secretary is - the minute I slap their hands off my arse cos it isn't their property, that's when I get the boot. And that's what happens in just about a year if you go take that job with Chowdry, Donna. You slap the bastard's hand off your arse and you get replaced by a blonde who's younger, with a quarter of your skills. And after that, the world goes to hell."

Donna in the car frowned at her apparently homeless, future self. She'd have thought this was all bonkers, and a set-up like those candid camera shows...except that she'd wanted to say just about those words to Mum for some time. And nobody knew that, not even Gramps. It was still confusing though, and she showed it in her question. "But what do I do? What's temping at H.C. Clements got to do with the world not going to hell?"

"Dunno, other than being in the right place at the right time to save some daft bloke from drowning Christmas Eve," the Donna outside the car said. "But anything's got to be better than this, yeah?" She gave herself a wan smile, glanced at her watch to see it had been 10:01 for several seconds already, then stepped away from the car and wobbled. "Don't worry about me, just turn left and bloody well live your life, you hear me Donna?"

"Yeah. Good luck, Donna," Donna nodded, gave herself an encouraging smile, then turned left.

* * *

A block later, she glanced at her mother, who had been dead silent since the older her had said so much. "Something wrong, Mum?"

It took a moment for Sylvia to manage any words, and she looked at her daughter with pain in her eyes. "...is that what you really think of my trying to get you to get a permanent job, Donna? That I'm a horrible nag who doesn't care that her daughter's been getting harassed?" Sylvia was shaken by what that ghost of the future had said to her.

"Eh," Donna shrugged as she drove toward the City and her waiting job. "Must have been a lot of hell that future me went through in two years, cos I've only had three jobs that ended like that. Though I suppose a good number of those temp jobs might have been open to permanent positions if I'd put up with wandering hands. And yeah, it did hurt me when you wouldn't ever let me get my say in to explain why, but you know what?"

She stopped at a light and turned to smile at her mum. She'd somehow found peace with her relationship with her mum, thanks to a future self showing up to spout off, and she wasn't going to leave her mum depressed just cos she'd got the truth shoved in her face. "Despite all that, I love you, and I know you love me and you want the best for me. And when I find what's best, you and Dad and Gramps will be behind me a hundred percent. She knew that too, y'know, despite all that pent-up bitterness. 'I love you' was almost the first thing she said, after telling you to shut it."

"Of course I love you, Donna. You're my daughter." Sylvia sniffed as they started moving again, then turned the conversation away from the uncomfortable subject of her failings as a mother. "But really, what on Earth could you do as a temp at H.C. Clements that could change the world that much? And how is that job going to have you at the right place to save someone from drowning?"

"Dunno," Donna shrugged. "But I'm not gonna end up homeless and bitter and starving, that's for sure. Let's just treat it like an episode of The Twilight Zone and forget it unless something happens to prove it, okay?"

"Well, all right." Sylvia nodded, then settled back into the passenger seat as her daughter drove into her future. A future that would have less nagging in it, no matter what happened.

* * *

"That went well." Feeling weaker than a newborn kitten from her overexertion, Donna somehow managed to stagger to and into a tiny alley between two shops before her legs gave out to drop her abruptly to the ground.

"...ow..." she mumbled, so exhausted from being so hungry and not fed before this jaunt, then all the running she'd done, that she could barely feel the pain of landing directly on her tailbone. It was probably broken, but she just couldn't muster the strength to care...

"You daft bitch. You stupid cow," came the angry voice of the blonde who was the first person Donna had ever really wanted to murder. "How dare you think you know more than me? You were supposed to kill yourself back there, not actually make it to talk to yourself!"

"Cos I do, some ways," Donna murmured, angry enough to voice some conclusions she'd come to, even through her pain and exhaustion. "Cos there's no way in hell I'll ever kill myself for some stupid peroxide tart who's pining for a man who dumped her."

She would have laughed at the look on the woman's face if she'd not had a pain start up in her side. Like the worst cramp ever, times ten. Donna put one hand over that stabbing agony, not like it would help, and growled through the pain. "Didn't think I'd figure that out, huh? Why else put me half a mile away with the shape I'm in? You want rid of the competition. Cos that's what I am to you, innit? Competition for the Doctor."

"You have to die," the blonde said as she raised a ridiculously large gun. "You die, and you give my message to the Doctor."

"Like hell," Donna rasped, and spat out one question she hoped would save her life. Such as it was. "You'll have to do the killing yourself, and what's the Doctor gonna say about that?"

"You're never going to know, and neither is he, cos it'll never have happened," She pulled the trigger on her huge gun, which put quite a large hole in the exhausted ginger, and the blonde stood there and watched as her life drained away. Only when Donna was less than a minute away from death did she lean in to whisper. "You tell him Bad Wolf, and know when you do, he'll be leaving _you_ soon."

"...liar..." ghosted out on Donna's last breath.

* * *

She'd thought there'd be nothing but blackness, but everything was rewinding instead. Somehow knowing that this was what the bitch meant when she'd said it wouldn't have happened, she held onto that last day with every ounce of mental ability and stubbornness she had. The same mind and memory that had her master so many offices in two days or less was going to remember every important moment, or she wasn't the best temp in Chiswick.

She came back to herself in the fortune-teller's place, screaming, and felt that beetle fall off her back. Bolting to her feet, she stomped on it hard then glared with righteous fury at the fortune-teller who was desperately trying to get away from her. "What. The HELL. Was that?!"

"You were so strong," the woman wailed, without answering the question. "What are you? What will you be? What will you become?"

"I'll tell you what I'm gonna become! I'm gonna become your worst nightmare! Oi! Get back here you bitch! You've got explaining to do!" She shouted as the woman fled through a cloth-draped door, and would've followed right after except the Doctor came in.

"I'd know that voice anywhere," he said as she turned around. "What's got you so mad though?"

"Where the hell have you been?" Donna snapped, then threw herself at him for a hug. "Oh never mind," she continued as she felt his arms wrap around her. "I have had one hell of a day."

"Day? It's only been half an hour since I saw you last," he said as he held Donna close. Then he saw the stomped-on beetle and frowned. "I think you should tell me about it."

"Love to," she replied, then, once they ended the hug, she kicked the beetle away from the stools.

"I need to look at that," he snapped. "That beetle you're so angry with might have some side-effects or something that I'll need to know about!"

"Fine, just keep it away from me," she huffed as she sat down. She didn't want to think about that horrible thing anymore.

"It'll be all right, Donna," he said, hoping to calm her down as he knelt by the very dead beetle. "I just worry."

"You should," she snapped, with a full-body shudder at the remembrance. "That was attached to me until just a minute ago!"

"I'll get right on checking it out then," he replied and dug in his pockets for a stick and his sonic. "Did you have to stomp on it though?"

"When you find out what I went through, you'll be surprised I wasn't stomping it into paste when you showed up," she rolled her eyes as he started poking at it with the stick. "Blimey, the stuff you keep in your pockets," she managed a half-laugh and started calming herself down. He wasn't that fortune-teller, or that blonde, she shouldn't really be shouting at him.

"I'm all ears," he said and smiled at her, then went back to poking, and occasionally sonicing, the beetle.

"Yeah. Well, it all started when the bug attached to me...or maybe when that wench started prompting me to tell her what lead me to meeting you. S'weird, thinking that if I hadn't made one little turn I wouldn't have met you, but that's what happened. Bug on me, and wench chanting 'Turn right' at me over and over, and suddenly I'm back in the past and not going to the job at H.C. Clements but going off to some photocopier job instead."

He looked up at her and frowned. "Oh, that's not good. What happened then?"

Donna sighed. "Well, you drowned under the Thames cos I wasn't there, and then the world went to hell by express train. Can't really remember much of that and I'm glad, cos what I do remember was really disturbing. But the last day, that I remember some of." She scowled at the memory as he joined her on the other stool.

"What happened?" He quietly asked and took her hand. He remembered that day he'd met her for the first time. It was very probable that, without her to save, he'd have been so busy drowning the Racnoss that he wouldn't have paid attention to his own safety until too late.

"A daft blond bint who'd been stalking me off and on for almost two years got me to agree to come with her to a warehouse where they'd been keeping your TARDIS." Donna looked at him, tears prickling her eyes with the pain she hadn't known to feel for the ship back then. "Oh God, Doctor, they'd gutted her! Ripped open her console and run wiring out of her! She was dying...and they didn't care! All they wanted was to use her so they could make a poor-man's time machine that depended on bouncing chronons or something off a bunch of mirrors. Or...I think that's what it was, cos I didn't catch all of that explanation."

She shrugged and managed a hint of a smile. "Too pissed off that I wasn't getting answers to pay attention, I guess. Or too scared of that ruddy beetle-bug stuck on my back, take your choice."

"Probably a bit of both," he said, and managed a bit of a smile even though he felt sick at her description of what had happened to his TARDIS. "D'you want to go on?"

"Have to, cos that's the part I remember best," Donna said. "Anyway, they got me all set up to make myself turn left instead of right. But they set me down in the past half a mile away. Half a mile," she almost shouted in remembered indignation.

"We-ell, that could've been anything from inaccuracy in targeting coordinates to their hoping you didn't cause a time rip and incite Reapers by interacting with yourself." He said, then frowned when she flinched.

"Oops." She hunched her shoulders together and gave him a sheepish look. "But...well, that's what I did. I was so furious, thinking I'd been deliberately set down so far away, that I actually made it. Half a mile in three minutes and a bit, and now I can't believe I did it with the poor shape I was in. Then I shouted at my mum, told myself that I'd just lose another job for not putting up with wandering hands if I went right, and off I went turning left."

"Donna," he sighed in exasperation. "I thought you knew better than that, after I told you what Rose did when I took her back to meet her dad!"

"Well I'd never met you at that time, had I?" She frowned at him, then tilted her head. "I didn't touch myself, though. Didn't even touch Mum, even...closest I got to either of them was knocking on the car window. And yes, I can remember the other side of the conversation too. Thought it was utterly daft, but I believed it cos no one but me knew I'd wanted to shout like that at my mum. Then Mum and I had a brief heartfelt conversation and we decided to treat it like an episode of The Twilight Zone."

"Well, we're all still here so you didn't trigger off any Reapers," the Doctor said, then tilted his head. "And that would be why I've got two sets of memories about your mother, the newer set with her a bit more friendly."

"Oh? What was she like before? And how come you remember, is that another Time Lord thing?" Donna asked, honestly not remembering anything other than her mother treating the Doctor like a welcome guest after she'd told her he was the bloke she'd saved.

"Not as nice, and let's leave it at that," he replied. "And yes, another Time Lord thing. I'll still remember both versions, although the older one will fade now. But there wasn't any harm done with the change, and your mother's a nicer person now, so I'm not going to try and change it back." He paused, then raised a curious eyebrow. "Was that the end of it then? You watched yourself turn left and then you woke up here?"

"I wish," she snorted, then sighed and looked away. "I was in really poor shape from pushing myself that hard...hadn't had near enough to eat in at least six months, and I hadn't had anything but a cup of coffee in...ooh, six or eight hours at the very least. So I was just fallen down in an alley, wanting to pass out, when the blonde showed up again in her fancy little light show, carrying a ridiculously large gun. Then she started ranting at me about how I was supposed to have died to make myself turn left."

"She what?!" The Doctor leant forward, frowning in worry, both for Donna and because he was beginning to think he knew who the blonde was. "So you were right, then, about being dropped half a mile away. It _was_ deliberate."

"Oh yeah," Donna agreed, then looked away. "I was vicious there, cos she'd been talking you up a lot like she owned you, and it's probably just cos I wasn't well-nourished and I was so exhausted and furious about the half-mile thing, but I said I wasn't killing myself for a daft bint who was pining for a man who'd dumped her. And then I accused her of wanting me dead cos she saw me as competition for you."

He tensed, because there was only one blonde woman he knew who might talk like that, but waited for her to tell him the rest. He already didn't like it, but he needed to hear it. And he'd have words with Donna later about how vicious she was, but she'd already admitted it. And anger made people say very harsh things, true or not.

"Anyway, then she said I had to die and then give you her message, and I got really nasty because I didn't want to die, and you know me. Words are my weapons. So I asked her what you'd think of her killing me." She looked into his eyes then, and cried for the pain in his. "She said you'd never know cos it wouldn't have happened, and then she shot me."

"And then what?" He thought Donna might be afraid of him now, because of the harsh tenseness of his voice. Why else would she be crying? Surely she couldn't see the pain he was feeling?

"Then she said to tell you 'Bad Wolf'. And that when I did, I should know you were going to get rid of me soon." She sucked in a sobbing breath and tried to stop crying. "And then I died, I guess, and everything went into high-speed rewind and I woke up here screaming, and the first thing I did was squash that beetle."

"And shouted a lot," he managed a more normal tone, though he failed to manage a smile as he handed her a handkerchief. He'd tell her what 'Bad Wolf' meant later. When he'd come to terms with what both she and Rose had done, if he was lucky. But he wasn't getting rid of Donna for fighting with words, not when he'd not got rid of Rose for nearly destroying all life on Earth.

"Yeah, at the witch who ran off instead of answering questions. Speaking of the beetle, what was it before I stomped it?" Donna asked, having managed to stop crying, and wiped her eyes before giving back the handkerchief.

"One of the Trickster's Brigade," he said as he absently returned the cloth to his pocket. "They change lives in tiny little ways, for the fun of it mostly. Like turning right instead of left. Teeny little changes that the universe usually compensates around. But with you, that one little change made a whole parallel world."

Glad to let her horrible moments of acid words and dying go for a while, she still frowned at him. Hadn't he said... "Hold on though. Thought you said parallel worlds were sealed off?"

"They are," he replied. "But you had one created around you. That's happened to you twice now."

"What?" Donna asked, boggled. Had they had something happen that she just didn't remember?

"Well, the Library, and then this." He frowned in thought. Why was everything happening to Donna? It wasn't like she went looking for trouble...she was one of his most sensible companions, in that respect. People did like kidnapping her though...

"Oh. S'pose it goes with the job, travelling through time and space," Donna said with a shrug. She hadn't thought the Library experience was a parallel world, but what did she know?

"Eh, it used to be a possibility in the past, before the walls were sealed. But...sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna. I met you once, then I met your grandfather, then I met you again. In the whole wide universe, I met you for a second time. It's like something's drawing us together..." He trailed off, thinking furiously, then huffed a sigh and shook his head as she distracted him.

"You're bonkers. I'm not _that_ special." Donna said and tried to look away, but he caught her chin and made her keep looking at him.

"You're the one who's bonkers, Donna. You're brilliant." He smiled at her, trying to get her to see the obvious. One of these days he'd get her to properly believe him.

"She said you said that. The blonde who killed me," Donna frowned, trying to remember what else the woman had said before she'd gone all bunny-boiler. "She...she also said the stars are going out. And I saw it, in that parallel world. It's why I went with her to the warehouse, to try and stop that."

"Yeah, but that world's gone," he murmured, trying to reassure her even though he felt a sinking feeling in his hearts that meant this was going to be trouble. Big trouble.

"Yeah, I know that world's gone...but she said it was all worlds. Every world. She said the darkness is coming even here." Donna frowned in confusion at that. "But how would she know? I mean, she was just a daft blonde with a vicious streak from a now-gone world, right?"

He sighed and gave her a bleak look. "No. No, I'm afraid she wasn't, Donna. 'Bad Wolf'...that tells me who she is." He stood up and helped her up. "Come on, back to the TARDIS with us."

"That I'll agree with - I won't rest easy till I see her all intact again. That was just horrible, seeing her all ripped open like that." She followed him to the door, and then dug in her heels. "But...who is she, Doctor?"

"Trouble," he growled, and left the tent-like room in a swirl of his coat.

"Just like a man," she muttered and followed him out to see him staring all about. Whoever she was, she really was trouble cos 'Bad Wolf' was everywhere. "Oh isn't that wizard. What is she then, super graffiti artist?"

"Donna, not now! Back to the TARDIS, hurry!" He grabbed Donna by the hand and nearly dragged her back to his ship in a combination of fear and anger.

"Oi! Careful, Spaceman!" Donna shouted, but managed to keep up with him after the first stumble of surprise.

They ran through the empty market, which Donna thought was odd because it had been full just a little while ago. Maybe an hour? Wasn't closing time already, was it? Or was everyone hiding from all the Bad Wolf nonsense showing up everywhere? When they got to the TARDIS, Donna decided that the people were hiding - cos she wanted to hide too, now. Bad Wolf was even replacing all the words on the TARDIS, and that just wasn't right.

The Doctor stood and stared at his ship for a moment, then opened the door and rushed inside where he groaned at the red lighting and the sound of the Cloister Bell. "Oh no. No no no no no."

"Doctor?" Donna couldn't keep a quiver out of her voice as she shut the door behind her. That bell ringing sounded really ominous. "What's that bell mean?"

"The Cloister Bell means danger. End of the universe level danger." He was tense as he reached out to stroke the console. At his touch the red lighting eased more toward her normal spectrum, but the TARDIS was still ringing the Cloister Bell.

"Oh." She was silent for a moment, then she gently touched his shoulder. "Doctor? Can you tell me who that woman was now?"

He didn't want to, but with the TARDIS announcing danger as she was, he had to. Might never get the chance otherwise. "Rose. That was Rose Tyler."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer - As usual, I don't own a darned thing except what passes for a plot. The BBC owns everything else.

Chapter 2: Vignettes

* * *

AN: I knew I should never have marked this story as complete. Oh well. Surprise present for everyone who read and liked this story. More chapters to come...and yes, eventually we'll get to what happened for Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Just stop fidgeting and enjoy the... *ahem* ... journey. :)

Donna changed her mum by changing history just a little bit, so here's some vignettes to show that off. Runaway Bride, Partners in Crime, The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky.

Beta-love for tkelparis, and love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*

* * *

Vignette 1 - The Runaway Bride - Oh Donna! What were you thinking?!

* * *

Donna stood there and watched the Doctor and his mad blue box vanish, then took a deep breath and walked into the house. "Mum, Dad, I'm home!"

"And what time's this?" Sylvia engulfed her daughter in a hug even as she was snapping at her, then drew back, startled. "Donna! You're soaking wet! And stinking! What happened?"

"Long story, Mum," Donna replied and gave her Dad a careful hug so's to not get him damp too. "Let me just get changed so I don't catch my death, and I'll tell you, all right?"

"Does it have anything to do with that odd star-shaped spaceship that the military blew up?" Geoffrey asked as his daughter started up the stairs. "It's been on the news. So has the mysterious draining and refilling of the Thames."

"Already?" Donna paused on the stair, startled. "Wow, that was fast. But yeah, it's got something to do with that. More to do with the Thames though. I'll be right back, promise." She then dashed up the stairs to the bathroom, only stopping to pick up a change of clothes from her room along the way.

Fifteen minutes later, and much cleaner and drier, Donna came back down in warm flannel pyjamas, thick socks, a heavy dressing gown and her old bunny slippers. And despite their curiosity, her parents wouldn't let her talk until she'd downed a good hot cuppa and at least a serving of dinner.

Then she told them everything over the rest of dinner. Lance. The Racnoss, and how it'd been using those Santas that the Doctor had shaken to bits. The discovery of the huon particle poisoning, and going back to see the beginning of the planet. Being captured, Lance dying...and the Doctor blowing holes in the flood barrier to drown the Racnoss.

"The look on his face...I've never seen anything like it," Donna shivered, remembering, and had a hot toddy pressed on her by her father. "Honestly, I think he'd have stood there until the place was flooded if I hadn't shouted at him."

Sylvia started at that, suddenly remembering the utterly mad minute from six months ago. "Donna...are you telling me you saved him from drowning? On Christmas Eve?"

Donna stared at her mum with a frown. "S'pose I did, yeah. Why?"

"Oh Donna, don't you remember? Six months ago, that utterly mad Twilight Zone moment before you took the job at H.C. Clements?"

"Oh. My. God. The Doctor's the daft bloke I was to save from drowning!" Donna's eyes were huge with the realisation.

"Yes he is. And now I want to know something, madam!" Sylvia scowled at her daughter. "Why didn't you at least invite him to dinner in thanks for saving your life?"

"But I did, Mum!" Donna threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "He wouldn't come, daft twit." She sighed and looked at the remains of her second helping of dinner and debated whether she was ready for dessert yet. "S'pose he might've if I'd agreed to go travelling with him..."

"Why didn't you," her dad asked. "You've only been saying how you want to travel more often for ages now, and you said he does time and space as well as the planet. So why not?"

"Because he scared me half to death, all right? All those guns, all that danger...how he was like ice when that alien spider was wailing as her children drowned! He terrifies me, and that's his life, going from danger to danger! I don't think I could handle that!"

Sylvia sighed and shook her head, and Geoffrey patted his daughter's hand. "You'll regret it, Donna. Biggest adventure of all time, and you turned your back on it."

"I'm just a temp, Dad. I'm not made for handling being shot at, and aliens trying to eat me." Donna sighed, then made a half-smile as her mum brought out the pudding. "He did say, if he was lucky, he'd see me again. Guess I've got that to look forward to. And I'm gonna be magnificent, just like he said I should."

"You're magnificent already, Donna," Sylvia said firmly as she plated the plum pudding and set a slice in front of her daughter. "You're our daughter."

"No reason I can't be even more magnificent though, is there?" Donna smiled as her mum sat back down, then raised her hot toddy as the clock chimed midnight. "Happy Christmas, Mum, Dad," And Happy Christmas Doctor, wherever you are, she thought.

"Happy Christmas, lovey," they said in return.

* * *

Vignette 2 - Partners in Crime - Tea and Phone Calls

* * *

Donna opened the door and walked in, then sighed at the familiar "What time's this?" from her mum.

She hung her handbag by the door as she replied. "And how old am I?"

"Not old enough to use a phone, apparently," Sylvia said with a frown, then took another look at her daughter and ushered her straight into the kitchen for tea.

A bit later, she was cleaning up as Donna was working on her third cup. "I just wish you'd stop with the flitting from job to job with so much time unemployed between them! I mean, how long did that job with Health and Safety last? Two days?"

"Mum, you know what I'm doing. And I promised Dad as well as the Doctor that I'd be magnificent, and that's what I'm trying to do." Donna sighed and looked into her cup, regretting that they used bags instead of tea balls. Maybe tea leaves would give her a clue how to find the Doctor - the Internet wasn't helping!

"Yes, but investigating odd things looking for the Doctor doesn't put money in your pocket or food on the table." Sylvia sat down and took one of her daughter's hands. "I know you promised your dad you'd stop being silly and look for that daft alien to see if he'd give you another chance, but I worry about you. What are you going to do when I'm gone, and you're still looking?"

"Mum, I haven't even been looking six months. And I promise, if I don't find him by Monday next, I'll see about that secretarial job at your hospital and just look on weekends, all right? But I can't stop right now, Doctor or not. This Adipose thing is bigger than him...there's something wrong with it."

"What is it then, Donna?" Sylvia got a worried look on her face as she remembered something. "You know Suzette's on those pills - it's done wonders for her, she's raving about it."

"...the fat just walks away," Donna mumbled, looking pale. Then she stared at her mother with a determined fire. "Mum, you've got to get Suzette and whoever else you know that's on'em to stop taking those pills. What I saw tonight...I still don't believe it, but it happened, it really happened. One of their customers...oh God." She covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. Poor Stacy Campbell.

"Oh my word," Sylvia said and squeezed her daughter's hand. "I'll talk to Suzette tomorrow. And don't look at me like that, it's the first chance I'll get - she's gone to bed by now."

"And probably taken today's pill too," Donna sighed and slumped a minute. "Well, talk to her soon's you can, all right?"

"I will. If you're going back to do more investigating at Adipose Industries tomorrow, I'll let you have the car even though it's my turn." Sylvia stood up and poured the remains of the tea into a thermos. "In case you need a quick getaway. Now here, take this up the hill to Dad."

"Course I will, Mum. And thanks for the car." Donna hugged her mum, then took the thermos and left the house.

* * *

The next evening, in the ladies' toilets, Donna growled as her phone rang. She ducked back into the stall she'd been hiding in and answered it with a hissed. "Not now!"

"But Donna, it's gone past six and I need the car!"

"I can't right now Mum, I'm busy," Donna whispered.

"Still on that Adipose thing? And why are you whispering?"

"Yes. And I'm in the ladies' loo at the moment, so shush!" Donna hissed

"But I need the car, and you need to come along to De Rossi's too, so you can explain to Suzette why she should stop with the pills!"

"I'll try to meet you there, all right?" The door to the toilets slammed open and Donna whispered, hidden in the echoes. "Got to go," and turned off her phone.

Much later, Donna called her mum while standing on the street. "It's me-"

"Yes of course it's you, Donna! My God, why didn't you tell me those pills made little fat people?!"

"Cos I saw it with my own eyes and still had trouble believing it. So how could I expect you to?" Donna asked, then asked another question. Or tried to. "Is Suzette..."

"She's fine. Lost a few more pounds with little fat people popping out of her, but she's fine. And that spaceship! Did you see it?"

"Yes Mum. It took all the little fat people away. Nursery ship, according to the Doctor." She grinned, delighted. "Yeah, I found him tonight, he was investigating the place too!"

"Should've known with the spaceship showing up that he'd be involved," Sylvia sniffed but her heart wasn't in it. "But what about the car? You've still got it - and the keys!"

"Yeah. Um, should I put them in a bin? I'm right by one, thirty feet from the corner on Brook Street, and the car's just around the corner from there. Could leave 'em in that bin."

"Oh, don't you dare! Anyone could get them before I got there and then where would we be? No, you just bring the car home, you hear me?"

"Mu-um, he's invited me to go with him again and I said yes! We're leaving as soon as I get back around the corner!" Donna whinged, and didn't notice a blonde staring at her as she turned and walked back to the corner of Brook Street.

"Well if you're not coming home with the car, you get him to do that time travel thing to this morning and mail the keys home first class. That way I can maybe get them by tomorrow's mail."

"Fine, I'll do that then. Love you Mum!" Donna made a kiss-noise, then grinned at the Doctor stood in the TARDIS door.

"Love you too, Donna. You be careful, and come back for visits if you can!"

"Will do!" She hung up and bounced into the TARDIS, where she surprised the Doctor by knowing exactly where she wanted to go. First to wave to her granddad, up on the hill. And then to the post office that morning, which confused him until she dangled the keys at him.

* * *

Vignette 3 - The Sontaran Stratagem - Hark at her, Michael Palin!

* * *

As Donna was lending Martha a hand setting up an impromptu medical station, a thought struck her and she asked. "Do you think I should warn my mum about the ATMOS in her car?"

"Better safe than sorry," Martha replied.

"I'll give her a call then," Donna said and rummaged for her phone, but stopped when Martha interrupted her.

"Donna. Do they know where you are? Your family, I mean, that you're travelling with the Doctor." Martha didn't want Donna to repeat her mistakes. Any of them.

"Where I am right this minute? No. Do they know I'm travelling with the Doctor? Yeah, couldn't keep that secret from them." She snorted in wry amusement. "Trust me, my mum could put the Spanish Inquisition to shame, and hiding this would just be too hard. And Granddad even waved us off the night I started travelling with that wonderful, barmy alien." Donna raised an eyebrow at Martha, then asked. "Why are you asking?"

"Oh," Martha was taken a bit aback at the casual way Donna just threw out that her family knew she was travelling with an alien. "Because I didn't tell my family. I kept it all soo secret, and it almost destroyed them. They ended up imprisoned, tortured...my Mum, my Dad, my sister."

"What?" Donna almost yelped, startled and dismayed. That skinny dumbo hadn't said anything about that with all the times he was telling her about Martha!

"It wasn't the Doctor's fault, but you need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor," Martha said, and hoped her warning would keep Donna from getting too hurt later on. "He's wonderful, he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burnt."

"Oookay," Donna said, slowly, wondering just what was going through Martha's mind. Was she joining the crowd of people they kept running into that thought she and that daft alien were together? Or was this was her indirect way of warning her off that Spaceman for her own good?

* * *

"You never told me he had a little blue box, Donna." Wilfred eyed his granddaughter over tea. "Knew he was alien, you'd said so. But see, you expect aliens in big saucer ships not little blue boxes."

Donna grinned. "It's bigger on the inside, trust me. It's like a really, really big house in there, almost. Well, alien house, but still."

"Yeah, but is it safe?" He put his hand on his granddaughter's and gave her a concerned look. "This Doctor...I know you were looking for him since your dear old Dad passed on...but are you safe with him?"

"Oh yeah," Donna replied with a big smile. "And he's amazing, Gramps. Just completely dazzling. And never tell him I said that...his head would swell as big as the house." She paused for a sip of tea, then continued. "But I'd trust him with my life."

"Hold up, thought that was my job!" He gave her a mock-offended look.

"You're still first," she gave him a fond smile, then looked up as her mother walked in.

"Hark at her, Michael Palin. You could call home more often, you know. Though the pictures have been lovely." Sylvia set the laundry down with a huff, then walked over to hug her daughter who she hadn't seen for ages. "Are you staying for tea? Only, I haven't got anything in. Been trying to keep your granddad on that macrobiotic diet, but he sneaks off and gets pork pies at the petrol station."

Wilfred opened his mouth to protest, but got cut off before he could get a word in.

"Don't deny it, Dad, I've seen the wrappers in the car. Oh, I don't miss a trick. Now then, Donna, since you're here, you can sit there and cut out those coupons while you tell us about where you've been. Every penny helps, and the new mortgage doesn't pay for itself. Dad, kettle on."

"Right, kettle on," Wilf said, then shared a fondly exasperated look with his granddaughter before he got up. Sylvia had her managing ways, but they both loved her enough to put up with them.

* * *

The Doctor was deep in examining the ATMOS attached to the tailpipe of Sylvia's car when Wilf came out of the house and bustled over.

"Is it him? Is it the Doctor?" He got a surprised look when the Doctor stood up, because he recognised the man. "Ah, it's you!"

"Who? Oh, it's you!" The Doctor smiled, surprised. This was a coincidence, wasn't it?

Donna looked from daft alien to her granddad and back. "What, have you two met before?"

"Yeah," Wilf nodded. "Christmas Eve. He disappeared right in front of me."

"And you never said?!" Donna's jaw dropped - oh, that was just so unfair! She could've found him months ago!

"Well, you'd never said what he looked like, did you?" He beamed and shook the Doctor's hand. "Wilf, sir. Wilfred Mott. Pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Nice to meet you properly, Wilf," The Doctor grinned at him, then raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Donna.

Who squirmed, then blurted out. "Well of course I told them all about it! They'd already seen the ship get blown up on the telly!"

"Whoa!" The Doctor nearly banged his head on the bonnet as spikes shot out of the part of the ATMOS device attached to the engine. "It's a temporal pocket! I knew there was something else in there, and there is. It's hidden just a second out of synch with real time!"

"But what's it hiding?" Donna asked, then sighed as she heard her mum walking over. Oh please Mum, not now!

"I don't know, men and their cars. Sometimes I think if I was a car...oh, it's you. Doctor what was it? No, Donna said it was just Doctor." Sylvia rolled her eyes as the lanky alien smiled at her.

"Yeah, that's me." He then went back to sonicing, because Sylvia wasn't being horrible to either himself or Donna. Quite a change from the reception, though that could be attributed to the worry and stress.

"What, have you met him as well?" Wilf asked his daughter, looking very surprised. "I met him just last Christmas, but no one told me what he looked like."

"Of course I've met him, Dad, he's the man from the wedding. When you were laid up with Spanish flu." She turned her attention back to the Doctor who was back under the bonnet. "I suppose it's too much to ask that there's no robots or anything weird, and you've just popped 'round for a nice quiet visit?"

The question was answered when the spikes started outgassing, and the Doctor leapt back, adjusting the sonic. "Get back!"

He aimed the sonic at the gas-spewing ATMOS part, adjusted the frequency once more, then relaxed when it spat sparks and stopped. "That'll stop it."

"Oh, now you've blown up the car!" Sylvia threw her hands in the air. "What'd it ever do to you, get built by aliens?"

"Oh, not now Mum!" Donna groaned. "It's the ATMOS been tinkered with, if I understand right anyway. Not the car."

"But what do aliens want with cleaning up the atmosphere?" Sylvia rolled her eyes and edged back toward the house, just in case the car really was next to blow up.

* * *

Vignette 4 - The Poison Sky - Go stop those bloody aliens, you hear me?

* * *

After Sylvia had come running back out with an axe and shattered the windscreen, the Doctor and Donna helped her Granddad crawl out of the car and over the bonnet.

"Thanks," Wilf said after he'd managed to catch his breath.

"Not a problem," the Doctor replied with a relieved smile, then his attention went to Donna talking to her mother.

"I can't believe you've got an axe!" Donna exclaimed, shocked.

"Burglars!" Sylvia snipped, then turned a gimlet-eye on the Doctor as he helped Wilf over to her. "You. That's aliens mucked about with every car on the planet, yes?"

"Every car that's got ATMOS," he agreed as Ross came back with an old cab.

"Then go stop them since that's what you do!" She turned to Donna and gave her a sad, knowing expression. "I suppose you're going with him, then?"

"Yeah Mum," Donna gave her mum a hug. "We'll be careful, promise."

"You two, get inside, try and seal off the doors and windows," the Doctor added as he followed Donna to the cab.

Of course neither Wilf nor Sylvia went inside till they'd seen Donna and the Doctor off, and as they finally entered the house, Wilf murmured. "Good luck."

"They'll need every ounce they can scrape up." Sylvia replied as she shut the door behind them and went to turn on the news.

* * *

Later, after she'd gotten separated from the Doctor because the TARDIS had been kidnapped, Donna dialled home with his mobile.

"Mum, is that you?"

"Course it is sweetheart. Where are you? You're not calling from your phone, what's happened?"

"I'm fine, just didn't think to use my own phone," Donna sniffed, then asked. "How are you and Granddad?"

"So is this some stranger's phone? And we're all right, for the world being poisoned with gas. Dad's sealed us in pretty well. Now how's the Doctor doing as far as fixing this mess?"

"Nah, it's the Doctor's phone." Donna shed a few tears of relief that her family were safe, then managed a shaky laugh. "I have no idea. Went back to his ship cos I was having trouble breathing, and next thing I know the aliens responsible kidnapped it. Now don't panic!" She paused to make sure her mum wasn't going to panic, and continued. "I'm safe as houses cos they can't get in. It's just...I know he's got a plan, I just don't know what it is."

"I almost wish I'd asked you to stay home instead of let you go with him..." There was the sound of a muffled sob, then it was her granddad on the phone instead.

"Sweetheart, I know the Doctor's working on this problem, but we've been watching the news...they're saying the whole of London...the whole world...it's all getting covered with this stuff. The scale of it, Donna...I mean, I know he's a brilliant alien, but he's just one man. How can one man stop all that?"

"I don't know yet, Gramps. But don't worry - I know him, and I know he's all over it. I swear his brain's the size of the planet," Donna managed a shaky smile as she heard him laugh.

"Thought you said that was his ego, sweetheart?"

"Nah, ego's the size of the house, remember?"

"Think you said something of the sort."

"Yeah. Well, I'd best get off the line. Hopefully he'll be calling one or the other phone anytime now. Either that or I'll figure out something to do to help him. Love you both!"

She hung up after getting reassurances that she was loved, then stared off into space while tears of frustration and worry prickled her eyes and wet her cheeks.

* * *

After it was all over, Donna was sat at table with her granddad, just talking until her mum walked in with the shopping.

"I suppose you'll be off soon," Sylvia sighed as she set the bags down. "I wish you'd stay, sweetheart. We never see you anymore."

"I thought you were all right with me travelling?" Donna asked, heart breaking just a little with her family's sadness.

"Well we are, mostly," Wilf said when his daughter sniffled. "We just miss you, sweetheart. I don't suppose you could talk himself into visiting more often, could you?"

"And without other aliens doing horrible things to the planet? I mean, we've barely seen you this visit, and before this it was just phone calls and pictures!" Sylvia bustled around the kitchen, beginning to unpack the shop.

"I'll see what I can do, Mum, Gramps. I promise." With that Donna stood, kissed her granddad on the top of his head, then hugged her mum before she left, with repeated reassurances to return.

"And she's off again, Dad," Sylvia said, trying not to cry.

"There, there my girl. Our little general promised, and when have you known her to break a promise?" He gave his daughter a watery smile and a hug.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Me? Own anything but my own words? You've gone and gotten me confused with RTD, the Moff and the BBC again, haven't you? :D

* * *

Chapter 3 - Vignettes, part 2: Aftermaths

* * *

AN - This, and following vignettes, are all my beta's fault. Take a bow, tkelparis :D She's the one who wanted to see the other changes that would happen in the travelling, with a friendlier Sylvia who was in the know about the Doctor being an alien. But, even though there will have been changes, I am not rewriting episodes again, that's way too much work. So, voila - what they never showed us in the show at all, ever. Aftermaths, with changes (if there are any) described within.

Love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*

* * *

Vignette 1 - The Doctor's Daughter - Aftermath

Warning - Have your tissue box ready for this one

* * *

"You know," Sylvia said, once she'd got her daughter and the Doctor sat at the table for tea. "When I said visit more often, I wasn't expecting less than two days later."

"Yeah, well we just had a whole lot of stuff happen, and I wanted to come see you," Donna said with a watery smile, and squeezed the Doctor's hand.

He gave Sylvia a wan smile and shook his head before Sylvia could start about his endangering her daughter. "Donna was safe, I'd never let anything happen to her. It's just...we were in the future, on a planet at war...and I gained and lost a daughter in the same day."

"Oh my word," Sylvia gasped as she fell into a chair. "How could that happen?"

The story didn't get told quite then, as Wilf ambled in from the allotment, so they'd had to exchange hugs and hellos with him...but finally, with several interjections for questions, they finally managed to tell Donna's family just what had happened when the TARDIS went a bit bonkers and took them to Messaline.

"...Jenny was so bright and shining and full of life, and then," The Doctor closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath even as he wondered in a corner of his mind why it was so easy to tell his suffering to Sylvia and Wilf. "Then the Human general was going to shoot me, and she threw herself in the way. She died in my arms," he finished and looked up with tears in his eyes as he murmured. "...lost all my children to war..."

"Oh my poor lad," Wilf murmured, and laid a hand on the Doctor's arm. "It's always hard to lose a child. Lost my oldest child, Sylvia's brother, to war. We didn't even get a body to bury - he'd stepped on a mine."

The Doctor put a hand on Wilf's in acknowledgement of their mutual suffering, then he was startled when Sylvia cleared her throat. "Donna had a brother once. For all of an hour - he was premature, and he tried, he really did. But he died, and I never even got to hold him." Sylvia's lips twisted in a bitter excuse for a smile. "Miscarried one before Donna, and two between her and her brother...never could get up the nerve to have my heart broken like that again after he died."

So that was why it was so easy to tell them, the Doctor thought as he glanced at Donna. They'd lost children too.

Donna smiled sadly and shook her head. "No, I don't have any children of my own that I lost. I'm just being sad for all of you." She wouldn't claim Jenny as her daughter, even though she'd already lost her heart to the dear girl by the time she died. Wasn't right to shove herself into that special family...she'd just disguise her grieving as being sympathetic.

"I..." the Doctor stopped to clear his throat, then carried on with a wobbly smile. "I think you're wrong, Donna. You _were_ a mother to Jenny. She'd already imprinted on you that way, looking to you to explain things when Dad was being old and thick and trying...trying not to get hurt again."

"Oh," Donna's hand flew to her mouth, and there were tears welling up in her eyes. "I...I'd have loved to be her mother, Spaceman."

"We'll add her to the family memorial then," Sylvia said, then snapped when they all looked at her in shock. "What? You've said Jenny would have been Donna's daughter of the heart if she'd lived! That makes her family, and we don't let family be forgotten even if we never got the chance to know them!"

The Doctor couldn't speak through the tears and the lump in his throat, but his grateful smile said all that was needed.

And a few hours later, when all the crying had come to a temporary halt, he was given the great privilege of using his sonic screwdriver to add Jenny's name to the memorial stone they had, under the names of all the other Motts and Nobles lost before their time.

* * *

Vignette 2 - The Unicorn and the Wasp - Photos and Ponderings

* * *

"I'm glad this visit's a bit more cheerful than the last," Sylvia said as she brought over a plate of muffins.

"Yeah, well we did just meet Agatha Christie," Donna said with a grin. "And solved the mystery of her ten day disappearance, even."

"I'll bet himself was involved with that," Sylvia sniffed and sat across from her daughter.

"Well yeah, but there was another alien too. Giant wasp," Donna said, then bit into a muffin.

"A giant wasp?" Sylvia raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Oh Donna, I know how you are about stinging insects. Giant bee, giant wasp, giant ants, everything that can sting is giant to you...now, how big was it really?"

Donna swallowed, then waved her arm. "Never did get to measure it properly, but the stinger was as long as my forearm at least. It was flippin' enormous!"

"Oh my word," Sylvia said faintly, as her father and the Doctor came back from up the hill with a nice load of veg.

"Something wrong?" The Doctor came over to check on Sylvia and Donna, worried.

"Nah, was just telling her about the wasp when we met Agatha Christie, that's all." Donna quirked a smile. "Never did figure out, Spaceman - how big was it?"'

"The Vespiform? Oh, his body was about six feet long. I think, anyway." He crinkled his brow in thought. "We never did get to measure that particular one, too busy trying to keep him from re-enacting some of Agatha's mysteries."

"Aye-aye, sounds like storytime to me!" Wilf sat at table and looked up at the Doctor with a smile. "I mean, unless it was more horrible than Donna makes it sound."

"Nah, wasn't too bad actually," he replied with a grin. "I was just trying to remember where I put my camera. Got a few pictures this time."

"Donna's sent us some, from her travels." Sylvia said as she got up to bring more muffins and other edibles. "Pompeii, thankfully before the pair of you had to run from the volcano, that lovely snowy planet with the Cthulhu people-"

Donna interrupted her mum. "Ood, Mum, they're Ood. Not Cthulhu-people - they're lots nicer than that, really nice people."

"Ooh, been sneaking pictures behind my back, have you Miss Noble? How very cunning of you," he grinned and finally pulled out his camera. "But this time, you get to see what pictures I managed to take before it got too busy for the camera."

And for at least the next hour, they were busy showing and telling, though the Doctor did have to explain how he'd got the picture of the pair of them just before they'd gone for cocktails. Then he had to explain both bigger-on-the-inside pockets and the concept of having a pocket linked to the TARDIS to fetch and be rid of the tripod.

Then he and Donna traded off telling of how they'd met Agatha Christie at the garden party, and the first mysterious murder. Then Donna, glowering at the Doctor, told of her adventure searching rooms, and her first encounter with the Vespiform. And she showed her mum and granddad a picture of Agatha Christie she'd managed to sneak with her phone.

Finally they got to the part where he'd been poisoned, and neither of them said anything further for a good few minutes. Finally Sylvia broke the silence. "Oh it can't be horrible, you're here and alive, so obviously you managed to find an antidote or something."

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and made a moue of embarrassment. "We-ell, it was more complicated than that. See, because I'm not human, I can go through this procedure - detox is what it's called in English - and that's what I did. Ginger-beer, walnuts and anchovies, then a shock and I'm better."

Sylvia noticed her daughter blushing, and asked. "So, what kind of shock did you get, Doctor?"

He blushed as well, and mumbled. "donnakissedme."

"Sorry, I didn't quite hear that." Sylvia said, feeling both curious and mischievous for once.

"He said I kissed him, Mum. Cos that's what I did - biggest shock I could think of, kissing him," Donna snapped out, blushing furiously now.

"And why was that such a shock?" Wilf asked, head tilted to the side. He thought it would be lovely if they'd stop and take proper stock of each other and tried being more than friends.

"Because we're not like that," the Doctor replied, still blushing because he was remembering how nice the kiss was, through the anchovies, walnuts and fear for his life.

"No, no way, not like that at all," Donna confirmed, almost tripping over her words as she tried not to blurt out that she might actually like to try kissing the Doctor again, only without the walnuts and anchovies and ginger beer.

Sylvia and Wilf exchanged a look while the pair were babbling on about not being 'like that', and decided to save the two of them from protesting too much. "Well," Wilf said. "Now we've got that sorted, d'you feel up to finishing the story?"

"Might as well," Donna said, still blushing a trifle. "Anyway, after that mess in the kitchen, the Doctor set up a trap for the Vespiform at dinner, and that was the most peppery soup I've ever had, Spaceman."

"I needed the pipperine in the pepper to flush out the Vespiform. Shame it didn't work properly."

"Yeah, poor Roger." Donna sighed, then answered her mum's question about Roger, and they finished telling the story in a little less than half an hour. And had a mostly-enjoyable time of the rest of the visit.

Now if only her family would stop the teasing about that kiss...

* * *

Vignette 3 - The Library - Lost Chance?

AN: There's a big canon shift in this Aftermath. And a little one too, cos it always bugged the heck out of me that the future Doctor had stuck a neural relay in River's sonic screwdriver. Why do that when she had a neural relay already as part of her spacesuit? So to solve that annoying little itch in my head, I...well, you'll see. :D

* * *

The next time they popped around, it was a grey, rainy day. Sylvia thought the day matched their mood perfectly, and wondered to herself, as she fixed tomato soup and toasted-cheese sandwiches, if they'd done it a-purpose. Except it'd been a bright, sunny day when they'd come back and told about his lost daughter, so probably not.

And she did try to wait for them to start talking, she honestly did. But after they'd finished the soup and sandwiches and still hadn't said hardly a word, she took Donna's hand in hers and asked. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? What's happened this time?"

And that triggered a flood of words that neither she nor Wilf could find pause enough in to say anything, much less ask a question. All about how they'd taken a trip to a Library planet, how it was infested with invisible people-eating things, and how Donna and the Doctor had gotten separated because he'd been trying to keep her safe.

About that time, Donna paused, looking for words, and the Doctor had his eyes closed as he spoke. "I...I was gutted, when I saw her face on that Node. I don't think I actually had a clear thought until I got a glimpse of her when I found the signal interfering with the sonic." He made an attempt at a smile, but it was sad. "River Song, for all her confusing nature and seemingly backwards history to me, she's the one I owe my own life to. Got me moving, kept us all moving."

"But who is she?" Wilf asked, but then he knew it was the wrong question to ask, as that poor man's face got all closed-off. But they did both continue with the tale - Donna's little dream-life in the computer, and the Doctor with what was going on outside it.

And then the Doctor finally told them who River Song was. "She was my granddaughter," he said in a wobbly voice. "Told me she was the daughter of a son that wasn't yet born for me, and the daughter of a future companion. And then she sacrificed her life to save everyone."

"Oh, you poor man," Wilf murmured and squeezed the Doctor's shoulder.

"D'you want me to tell the rest of it, Doctor?" Donna squeezed his hand and gave him a sad smile.

After a moment, that included clearing his throat, the Doctor gave her a wan smile in return and shook his head. "No. No, I can manage. I may have mentioned that she had a sonic screwdriver that was wider than mine... it was after I got myself free of the handcuffs that I figured out why. See, the me in the future that gave her that screwdriver, he'd had her entire life to figure a few things out. So he gave her a sonic screwdriver large enough that I could finagle the neural relay into it. And I did, and I uploaded her into the computer."

"Oh my word," Sylvia gasped. "But...you'd just gone to all the danger of getting everyone out for the little girl's sake as well as to save all of them. Why'd you go and add stress to her again?"

"Because it wasn't a strain on her, not like all four-thousand odd people had been. And besides, she'd already scooped up the others. Proper Dave, Other Dave, Miss Evangelista, Anita...she'd uploaded from their neural relays and hadn't even remembered doing it until the others were brought out. So, in a sense, none of them died."

As Sylvia scoffed and Wilf looked puzzled, Donna smiled wryly and shook her head. "I was in that computer, I know. They can't ever come back out of the computer, but inside, in that virtual world it's just as real as can be. The only difference is that they'll never age. Which is a shame, especially for Charlotte being stuck as a little girl, but they'll go on forever until the Library itself dies."

"But still...you'll never see her again." Wilf said with a concerned look.

"Ah, but you're forgetting something, Wilf," The Doctor shook his head and sighed, then managed a small smile. "She was popping in from my future. I've got all of her growing up to live, yet. I'll see her again."

"He'll just grieve all over again when it's time to say goodbye and send her to the Library, I know him." Donna sighed and rested her head on the Doctor's shoulder. She wished she could be the one to give him that son... but it'd never work out. Besides, he had to like her that way, and as far as she could tell, he didn't.

"Yeah." At first it was a wan smile, but it got stronger. "Yeah, I've got a lot to look forward to with that wild grandchild of mine." He wished Donna liked him as more than friends - he'd love it if she was River's grandmother. But as far as he could tell, she didn't, so he'd just accept the priceless gift of her friendship and hope she'd change her mind eventually. Or help him find the right person to be River's grandmother, whichever it ended up being.

"I'll get more tea," Sylvia said, then raised an eyebrow. "Dad, get the plates and bowls."

"Right, right," he replied and collected the dishes as the Doctor's arm went around Donna.

On the other side of the kitchen, daughter looked at father and murmured, "I have the feeling Miss River Song is...or rather, will be part of the family, Dad."

"Oh?" Wilf put the plates in the sink and looked at his daughter.

"Look at them," Sylvia hissed. "Next trip back, I'm almost expecting her to have his ring on her finger!"

"Can't tell them that, though," he murmured with a soft smile. "They're still in denial right now... well, Donna is at least. He's got the clue, told all of us his feelings, just about."

"How can she still be so blind though? Especially with how blatant he was about it!"

"Afraid, I'll bet. Our Little General's had so much heartbreak she's stopped looking. It's going to take something huge to make her see what's right under her nose." Wilf sighed and shook his head as the kettle whistled.

"I just hope it's not a risk to either of their lives...and sometimes I wish I'd never let her go, Dad. It's so dangerous out there!" Sylvia fretted over the teapot as she added water and the infuser.

"Now sweetheart, Donna's grown. We can't keep her locked away, nor wrap her in cotton. Besides, life here on Earth's just as dangerous, what with terrorists and criminals and car crashes and even falling down the stairs wrong. Let her do what's making her shine, Sylvia."

"Oh all right, Dad. It's not like she's still a child to be sent to her room...not like she ever stayed, the little monkey." Sylvia snorted with wry amusement. "She'd do more than climb out the window to stay with him."

Wilf only chuckled as he got down a box of biscuits, and he followed Sylvia and the teapot back to the table, where they both politely ignored Donna and the Doctor untangling from their one-armed embrace.

A few hours later, as they were getting ready to leave, Wilf asked, "So, where are you and Donna going next?"

"Oh, we need a bit of a break from the adventures," the Doctor said with a smile. "I thought I'd take us to Midnight. It's a bit of a leisure planet, all sorts of spas and things."

Donna turned and stared at him in disbelief. "You? You're actually taking us to a spa planet?"

"Why not? Like I said, we could both use a bit of a break. Besides, Midnight's supposed to be made of diamonds." He grinned at her and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

"Oh yes, let's!" Donna beamed up at him and took his arm. "We'll see you later, Mum, Gramps!"

"Have fun!" The pair left behind waved them off, then as Sylvia shut the door she sighed and murmured. "I hope it's a real break for them and nothing goes wrong."

"Now sweetheart," Wilf said. "What can go wrong on a spa planet?"

* * *

AN: Yes, I know, huge change to the DW timeline and River's history etc. But given the huge changes in the other vignettes, I couldn't very well pull another One Decision. And that wraps up the Aftermaths, too. Next up: Picking up from where the original chapter left off!


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Don't own, just fingerpainting with words. And worshipping the BBC for making the decision to bring DW back.

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Chapter 4 - Vignettes part three: And Now Back to the Follow Up

AN: I've already got three, maybe four different editions of rewritten Stolen Earth/Journey's End in the works, and I was not about to do yet another full edition. So I decided to do vignettes for this set too.

The original plan was to have the Stolen Earth and Journey's End vignettes in the same chapter as the other ones. But it went waaaaaaaay over my preferred wordcount because I found so many places where that one moment would change Sylvia... and then the aftermaths happened, so... oops. Separate chapters, my bad. Anyway, this chapter covers Stolen Earth vignettes, the next one will be Journey's End. And then I think I can finally call this story properly finished. :D

Warning: Authorial dislike of Rose taken to the extreme, just like in the first chapter. So brace yourselves.

Betalove to tkelparis, and love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*

* * *

Vignette 1 - Stolen Earth - Yes, that was Rose. Unfortunately.

* * *

"So, I just met, and got murdered by, Rose Tyler." Donna glanced around the neighbourhood they'd landed in. Nice sleepy Saturday, everything looked all right.

"Yeah," he replied, still watching the milkman trundle on, making his deliveries. Earth was fine, for the moment...so where was the danger going to be coming from? "Although why she was so insistent you die is beyond me. That parallel world would have collapsed within five minutes of the change."

Donna still thought it was because the tart thought she was competition, but held her tongue. She'd already inadvertently hurt her poor Spaceman enough, just telling him what had happened, she didn't want to add more to his pain. So she decided to pursue the how of the encounter instead. "But...you said she was locked away in a parallel world, different to the one that was created around me. How can she do that, hop between parallels?"

"I don't know," he replied, lost in thought. "I couldn't make the crossing when I lost her. But if she can cross from her parallel to your parallel now, than that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything. But how?"

Donna followed him back into the TARDIS, frowning in thought. "How's everything in danger if the walls are getting thin enough for transit? I mean, other than several parallel worlds possibly trying to go to war with each other."

The Doctor heaved a sigh as he went to the console. "Once the walls were sealed, they could only safely be unsealed by the ones who sealed them originally. My people, with the resources that were lost with Gallifrey, were the only ones who could make it like you said, a thinning of the walls. Any other attempts to penetrate...well, for example, you saw what happened to the windscreen when your mum used the axe on it to get your grandfather out of the car. Pretend that windscreen is the walls between the universes."

"Getting that fixed was expensive," Donna remembered, then blanched at the visual. First spiderweb cracks all over plus a huge dent in the safety glass - then the glass had shattered into those little bits. "But you can't just run a universe down to get the glass replaced. That's...that's..."

"That's why everything is in danger, Donna." The Doctor glanced up at her, his face troubled. "And Rose is right in the centre of it."

And here she went, but she had to put her foot in it to try and make up for ruining his hopes. "Doctor...couldn't it be possible there are other Roses in the parallels, and that was a different one that killed me?"

"No." He looked up at her then, and gave her a sad smile in thanks for the compassion that had made her try to find alternatives to the painful truth. Then he explained why he'd denied it. "There probably are other Rose Tylers in other worlds. But the one who killed you...that was my Rose. She's the only one who lived the experiences that would make her use 'Bad Wolf' as a message to me."

"I'm sorry," Donna was interrupted by the TARDIS shaking, and then they had bigger problems to distract them from the thorny Rose issue.

* * *

Vignette 2 - The Stolen Earth - Dangerous Thorns

* * *

"I need to find Donna and the Doctor," Rose said, absently waving her Preacher around and smirking inwardly as the ginger cow's mother flinched.

"Yeah, I've tried calling her, but I can't get through," Wilf said, keeping a careful eye on that gun while pretending he didn't notice her waving it about. "But she's still with the Doctor, I know that much, and the last time she phoned, it was from a planet called Midnight, made of diamonds."

"Planet made of diamonds," Sylvia scoffed, and went on to complain as she used to, in hopes that her apparent distaste of the Doctor would make this girl stop waving that terrifying gun around. "And here we are, planet been taken and those mad pepperpot things killing everyone and where is my daughter? Who knows where, and who knows what that blasted alien's gotten her into now!"

"You were my last hope," Rose said, gun drooping to point at the ground. If Donna's mother was so against the Doctor, then that meant...oh, she'd deal with that ginger cow, all right. Kill her and make sure the Doctor was hers, just as it should be. But where were they? "If we can't find Donna, we can't find the Doctor. Where is he?!"

Sylvia was about to say that wherever he was, he was better off than here, but the laptop beeped, and that horrible girl got distracted by everyone popping up on that odd Subwave network thing.

Selfish little beast, Sylvia thought with her lips thinned to near-invisibility. The world in danger, all these people trying to help get the Doctor and her only child back, and the only thing this Rose girl could think of was that she was first? Which she couldn't have been, if that Sarah Jane Smith had been a companion of the Doctor's. She looked like a contemporary of her own, which put her first and made Sylvia wonder what the Doctor had seen in this bottle-blonde chit.

And she didn't dare say anything about it, because that girl had that gun, and she didn't want to be shot dead and leave Dad and Donna all alone. Neither of them could manage without her...well, Dad couldn't, anyway. Donna...well, she was doing better now. And all because of the Doctor, much as she sometimes hated to admit it.

When those network people got everything going, she and her dad, as well as that horrible Rose, dialled the Doctor's number as well. Every little bit helps, as she said every week with the coupons. She'd just never imagined it would apply to saving the whole Earth.

And it apparently worked, even though it cost Harriet Jones her life. Because there was her daughter and the alien she was sure would be her son-in-law someday. Sylvia stifled a sob, hands clapped to her mouth as her dad puffed out his chest in pride that they'd helped, even if it was only a smidge.

Rose's lip curled as she watched how close the Doctor was to that useless ginger. He was only lonely, that's the only reason he had her along. Stupid bitch, thinking she was so special. She ought to leave her a real surprise, but she didn't have time to kill these two old people. Not if she wanted to get the shift right so she could get to the Doctor and reclaim him from the interloper.

After she'd called back to control, she hefted her Preacher and smirked at the old man and the cow's mother. "I'm going to find the Doctor now. Wish me luck."

She phased out to their calls of 'Good luck!'

Sylvia looked at her dad. "Good luck indeed. She'll need all of it she can scrape up to survive un-slapped when Donna finds out what's been going on."

"Now sweetheart, our little General's too smart to waste time on slapping when there's so much danger going on."

"Oh, I suppose. But just wait until they've saved the world." Sylvia would have said more, but then the phone rang, and she broke a nail in her rush to pick it up and answer.

* * *

Vignette 3 - The Stolen Earth - One Extra Phone call

* * *

They'd lost the Subwave Network, so while the Doctor was picking a spot to land them somewhere in Britain, Donna pulled out her mobile to find out if she still had a family.

The phone rang three times, then Donna almost cried when her mum answered. "Oh Mum, I have never been so glad to hear your voice!"

"Donna! Where have you been?! And why is some teleporting blonde with a ridiculously large gun stalking the Doctor? I mean, I appreciate her shooting that Dalek thing that was going to kill us, but still! She's stalking him! And who was that disgusting-looking man who shut down the Subwave Network we couldn't talk on?"

"Oh God, Mum," Donna groaned. Figured Rose would show up and annoy her family. "Are you and Granddad all right?"

"Oh yes, we're fine. Almost shot dead of course, but we're fine for now. What about you? And the Doctor? Has he figured out how to stop this yet?"

"Eh, good a shape as being in a crisis allows, and no, not yet. But he's working on it. Look, haven't got time, just had to find out if you were okay. You two stay safe, and I love you both!" Donna sniffed hard, then hung up on her mother trying to get her to stay on the line.

* * *

Vignette 4 - Stolen Earth - A Walk Down Memory Lane

* * *

"They all right?" The Doctor asked, then walked over to take her hand.

"Yeah, they're all right. Apparently Rose popped up and shot a Dalek, and they all watched the Subwave Network conversation, and now Rose is gone again so I just told Mum to keep her and Granddad safe."

"That's good. Donna," he started as they cautiously stepped out of the TARDIS into what might as well have been a ghost town. "Can you remember anything else Rose said in that parallel world?"

"Other than the last? Just that the darkness is coming. And the stars are going out. Look Spaceman, why don't we just step back inside a moment and you can look at my memory. Like when you let me hear the Oodsong - do that telepathy thingy."

"Isn't often I get someone who invites me into their head," he gave her a wan smile but stepped back into the TARDIS with her. "Now, this time I'm not opening your mind, I'm going into it." He met her eyes as he raised his hands to her head. "So anything personal and private, just imagine a door closing and I'll stay away from it."

"Yeah, okay, slam metaphorical doors in your face if you get nosy, got it. Now get on with it." She quirked a smile at him, then closed her eyes and relaxed.

"Bossy Earthgirl," he said fondly, then went seining through her memories looking for encounters with Rose.

...meeting her on the bank of the Thames. Rose saying everything was wrong and staring at Donna's back...

...meeting Rose on a random street, and again with the staring at the back, plus a warning to be out of town on Christmas. Ooh, that would've been the Titanic crashing...

...once more, during the ATMOS...oh, that's what she'd meant by Rose talking him up like she owned him. That was an odd look for Rose...possessive and almost...avaricious, he thought. And he really didn't like how she lied - it was impossible to be pulled from parallel to parallel without already being in transit. She had control over the process to an extent, given the light show that occurred every time Rose appeared. But that was the first mention of the darkness...

...the final time, that eventually lead to Rose killing Donna, that he paid close attention to. What Rose had done to the TARDIS had made him feel gutted too...but what she knew about the beetle made him both furious and curious. How could she be more callous than him in her explanation? Donna was terrified! And more important, how in any hell known in the universe did _Rose_ know about the Trickster's Beetle? He'd never even mentioned the Trickster to her, much less any of the Trickster's Brigade. Never. He could understand Donna not consciously remembering that though - she'd been terrified from seeing that beetle attached to her.

As he continued to force the memory to clarity, he frowned. What did Rose mean, reality was bending around Donna? Yes, it was like she was a coincidence nexus regarding him...but reality bending? Since she was born? That was...he'd say impossible, but it probably wasn't - just outside his experience. Oh, he had a lot to talk about to Rose now.

He sighed as, once more Rose was callous, to a degree he'd have to struggle to match, to a terrified woman who was grasping at fragile straws of hope. All she had to do was agree, because Donna had been _right_! That world _would_ blink out of existence once the correction had been made! And yet Rose let her go off believing she had to die. Why?

He could feel Donna close off the rest of the memory, but he begged to be allowed to see it. _Donna, please, I have to see it. I have to know the rest._

He was so proud of her when she tentatively thought back at him. _Doctor, please. I told you it already...I don't want you to hurt more, this's all hurt you so much..._

_Please? I might be able to find a clue to explain why. _ He didn't pressure that door though, simply waited for her decision. He felt her reluctance, but she also opened the door to let him see...

...the rage-fuelled run, and using the remainder of her energy to stay on her feet and snap at her mother. Sylvia had needed to hear that truth, but it just made him want to hurt all the people who'd harassed Donna like that. Between them and Lance, it was no wonder she was so leery of getting close to anyone...

...the final encounter with Rose didn't have any new information, but now he saw why she hadn't wanted to show him it. He felt like his hearts had been ripped out of his chest to bleed despair and grief on the floor, actually seeing Rose be so vicious, seeing Rose deliberately pull the trigger to kill someone. Not that Donna had shown to her best either, but she'd told him her part already...

He pulled out of her mind to find both their faces wet with tears, and Donna offering a hug that he gratefully accepted.

"I'm sorry, Doctor." That was all Donna said, but it was all that his compassionate, fiery ginger needed to say with words. Her hug said the rest.

"I know. But I had to see it for myself. See how much Rose had changed." Once the hug ended, he gave her a wan twist of the lips that might be a smile, then pulled out handkerchiefs for them to dry their faces.

Donna dried her face, then looked out the TARDIS and almost rolled her eyes at what she saw. Still, he wanted to know what she was thinking, and there she was ready to be asked. "There she is. Now you can ask her everything yourself."

"So I can." He started walking toward Rose, hands in his coat pockets.

Of course then a Dalek _had _to show up, and Rose _had_ to be oblivious to the danger, so he had to run. Which meant he got shot...oh, _that_ was going to make difficulties...


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: With the amount of Saint Rose worshiping happening _in the show_, you can read this and think I own DW? *boggles*

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Chapter 5 - Vignettes part four: At the end, a beginning

* * *

AN: Very long chapter, even for me. Without the AN and vignette separators, it was still over 9k words long - over 12k if I'd left the Stolen Earth ones together with the Journey's End ones. Lord only knows how I'm going to deal with it on LJ... ah well. I'll figure that out if I ever get time to update everything on LJ. And AO3... I am such a horrible person. *sighs* Anyway! Last chapter and wrapping everything up! And yes, still the Rose warning.

Beta love to tkelparis, and love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*

* * *

Vignette 1 - Journey's End - What the hell have you been doing, Rose?

* * *

After the regeneration that wasn't, the Doctor settled his hand then turned to frown at Rose. "Now that I've kept myself from being stricken by regeneration sickness in the middle of a crisis, we have to talk Rose."

She tried to hug him, but he caught her arms and held her at a distance. "What do we have to talk about? I'm back!"

"Yes you are. How?" He snapped the question at her, barely noticing Jack sidle up to Donna for an explanation.

Nervous, because this wasn't at all how she'd expected her reunion with the Doctor to go, Rose stammered. "Um...well...basically, we've been building this...er...this travel machine, this, this...er...dimension cannon, so I could...well, so I could come back! And here I am...aren't you happy to see me Doctor?"

"I'd be happier if you hadn't turned into a murderer, Rose," the Doctor replied, and his tone could have frozen a glass of water. "You didn't have to kill Donna just to get her to tell me you were coming back. She would have popped right back to Shan Shen anyway - that world was vanishing even as you pulled the trigger!"

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, aghast that he knew what she'd done. "I didn't kill her - that world never happened now! It doesn't count!"

"Yes it does!" The Doctor shoved Rose away from him and watched her stumble back. "Whether or not that world, that Donna, had any further viable existence, you still pulled the trigger! You still murdered an innocent woman and stood there watching her die! Why?!"

Off to the side, Donna had been filling Jack in on the basics of the parallel world and her interactions with Rose in it, all the memories fresh from the Doctor looking at them just minutes ago.

And while the Doctor was shouting at Rose to get her to explain her murderous tendencies, Jack asked. "How does he know all this detail? And for that matter, how do you? It should have been near-impossible for you to hold onto the memories with this level of clarity."

"Forced myself to remember those last six or seven minutes cos I was so furious," Donna replied, keeping a worried watch on the Doctor. "Rest of it was still there, just faded. Hurt a lot when he went in my head and refreshed them to see, but we had to try and figure out what this darkness stuff was about and that was the only way. Now shush," she motioned him silent before he could ask about the darkness. "Need to make sure I don't have to stop himself from doing something he'll regret."

"Because she had to die!" Rose shouted back, not wanting to admit the real reason. She was not going to admit that the ginger cow was right, not to the Doctor. "She bends reality too much to have let her live - there'd be two of her now if I hadn't killed her!"

Jack very carefully retrieved Rose's gun from the floor and put it out of her reach. Just in case. Because even he could tell Rose wasn't being as honest as she should, and he wasn't going to risk leaving a weapon in her reach.

"Liar," the Doctor spat. "She wanted the reality that should have been - she wanted the life with me she'd been denied! **IF** reality bends _**that**_ much around her, her wishes would have done the job if the changing timelines didn't! How many lies are you going to tell me, Rose? Tell me another - tell me how you knew about the Trickster's Beetle, that you could explain it as well as I could! I never even told you about the Trickster, much less his tools!"

"I...I..." Rose tried bursting into tears to make him stop shouting, as well as to keep from telling him everything she'd done. This was all going so wrong...and how did he know all these details?

"No answer?" He snapped, then closed his eyes as the power went out. "Well, they've got us. Nothing to do but talk until we find out where we're going." The TARDIS lurched as the Daleks got the TARDIS with a tractor beam or some such, and he nodded at Jack in thanks for his steadying Donna. "If you won't answer the question about the Trickster's Beetle, then tell me how you know reality bends around Donna."

"The...the cannon," Rose sniffled, trying to get him to be sympathetic by acting pathetic and helpless. "It can measure timelines as well as insert travellers into specific points. And the timelines...they all converge on Donna. And...and when she met you, reality started bending. Pushing the two of you together."

"Honesty at last," the Doctor growled, then sighed when Donna stepped away from Jack to lay her hand on his shoulder.

"Easy, Spaceman. We've got enough answers to be going on with about what happened in that parallel world." She slid her hand from his shoulder to his back and started rubbing small circles. Poor man, he was strung out like a high-tension wire from this confrontation, and they still had Daleks ahead.

"Not quite, Donna," he replied, then frowned at Rose again. "What was that about the darkness? Your parallel world runs ahead of this one - what was the future?"

"The stars were going out," she said and wiped her tears away because they were itching and weren't making him sympathetic like they should've. "One by one they were just...dying. And then, after the dimensional cannon started working, the dimensions started to collapse. Not just that world or this one, but all of reality. Even the Void was dead...something's destroying everything."

"And it needs the Doctor and Donna Noble to stop the stars going out, you said so yourself. And yet you killed her, and you still haven't answered why. Jealousy?" he huffed, still furious with her. The scanner beeped, and the Doctor cracked his neck to release a bit more tension. "Well, looks like we're here. Wherever here is."

"Probably that massive Dalek ship at the centre of the planets," Jack said. "Transmissions we picked up, they call it the Crucible. Bet that's where we are."

* * *

Vignette 2 - Journey's End - Instant Son, just add Supertemp!

* * *

"No, wait. I'm part Time Lord, part Human. Well, isn't that wizard?" The new Doctor had a confused look on his face for a moment.

Donna raised an eyebrow at him and attempted to prompt an explanation for something that had been puzzling her. "I kept hearing that noise, that heartbeat. Off and on, from the Shadow Proclamation until I touched the hand."

"Oh, that was me." He grinned at her. "My single heart. Because I'm a complicated event in time and space. Must have rippled back, converging on you."

"But why me?" Donna was confused, but that was, a bit, because she was trying to figure something out. Something about him being half-Human...

"Because you're special." He said with a shrug. Obvious fact was obvious, right?

"Yeah, you skinnyboys do think I'm all that and a sack of chips, don't you?" She rolled her eyes at him, then tilted her head. "Got a question for you though, genius."

"Yeah? What's that?" He asked, head tilted just like hers.

"You said you're half-Human. And that's cos I touched the hand and sparked you to grow, right?"

"Ye-es," he admitted, slowly, not seeing where she was going.

"So...are your Human bits from me, or did all the rest of it do something weird and you're just the Doctor but half-Human? And if they're from me...does that make you my and the Doctor's instant son?"

"..." He stared at her in shock, literally having never thought of that until she brought it up.

She smirked - even if he was her son, he still looked exactly like the Doctor, and she loved seeing him speechless! "Don't you think you'd better check that out?"

"Yeah. Yeah, right on that," he mumbled, and ran to find the spare sonic. He knew Donna hated being bleeped, but that would be the fastest way to answer her question.

Two minutes later, they had their answer. He was an instantly grown, adult son of Donna and the Doctor. Wasn't that just wizard?

* * *

After Donna had blocked the Dalek's weapons, the Doctor stared at her in complete and utter shock. "How did you work that out? You're-"

"Time Lord. She's part Time Lord." The other Doctor grinned. Oh, was he going to get a surprise in a minute!

"And part Human," Donna finished. "Oh yes, that was a two-way, _biological_, metacrisis. Half Doctor, half Donna." She smirked at him with a wicked twinkle in her eyes. Just another minute, and if he didn't twig on, she'd take great delight in telling him the truth.

"The Doctor Donna," the Doctor breathed, awestruck. "Just like the Ood said, remember? They saw it coming. The Doctor Donna."

"Or maybe they saw _him_ coming, Spaceman," she said, then manipulated some controls so the holding cells shut down. "Holding cells deactivated, and seal the Vault. Well, don't just stand there, you skinny boys in suits. Get to work!" And since he didn't show any signs that he'd put the clues together, it was time to leave him utterly gobsmacked! "Show us a little father-son teamwork!"

"What?" He stood there, jaw agape, as his son - his SON?! - smirked at him, along with Donna. "What?!"

* * *

Vignette 3 - Journey's End - Wait a minute! We're married?!

* * *

The Doctor had ensured that Donna and his instant son had places at the console to take Earth home, because he didn't want Rose touching his Old Girl anymore. Not after she'd gutted her once already. Twice if he counted the incident that had seen him regenerate into this self.

As the TARDIS flew smoothly through space with the Earth, the Doctor had a sudden thought, then did something that could only be called a mental clearing of the throat. _Donna?_

_What? How are you talking to...oh, your mind in mine, yeah, that'd do it. What's on your mind, sunshine?_ Donna glanced at him with a smile, then returned most of her attention to her section of the console.

_Erm, yeah, about that. If it's in my mind, it's in yours. And...there's a problem with that. _The Doctor hoped she wouldn't explode when she either a) leapt to the right conclusion or 2) made him explain it.

_Can't be me burning - as long as our son's around, the resonance from the meta-crisis will hold me steady till this all fades away or drains back into him. So...what's the problem? _ If she hadn't been coaxing her panel to work she'd probably have seen where he was going, but this was the one he usually had to hit the most so she was a bit busy.

_No, it's not you burning. _He sighed and blessed the fact that they'd just got Earth back where it belonged. Wouldn't be any chance of her making a mistake from the shock now. _It's...you know my name now, Donna._

Now that she wasn't busy, she could see exactly where that nitwit of a bloke of a Spaceman was going with all his bumbling attempts to explain. The shock of it delayed her a few seconds though. _Yeah, course I d-wait! Married?! We're married because I know your name?!_

_Yeah. Er...it can't be undone, either. Not even if I wiped all your memories of all our time together. _He shot a tentative look at her while everyone else in the TARDIS was celebrating Earth's return, then lost eye contact as he had to deal with a velcro attachment named Rose.

_Don't even think you're gonna get to try that, you daft twit!_ Donna glowered at him, then poked him in the chest once he'd managed to detach Rose and send her off to Jack. _Never expected to be married at all anymore, much less to you, skinnyboy! I never dreamed you could feel for me like I do for you. But you're my best friend ever, and if I can't survive a surprise marriage to my best friend, then I'd just best go be a barmy old cat lady and give up on everything but hairballs. Just don't expect any intimate married-people stuff anytime soon, you hear me? Your bits are weird, and I need time to get used to that._

_You're...you mean, all this time, if I'd told you how I felt, we could have had this earlier?! And...you're all right with the not asking?_ He raised a sceptical eyebrow at her, then captured the finger that had been about to poke him in a ticklish spot. He hadn't even thought about physical intimacy as of yet, but he was pretty sure they'd manage, somehow. Once they got used to the difference in their bits. _Oi! What do you mean my bits are weird? Your bits are the weird ones!_

_Oh we're a pair, aren't we? But...give me about a year to get used to it, and...well, yeah. Beats dying hands down, don't it? What about you, though? Isn't like you had a choice either...I've been shoved on you just like Jenny was. Even if we both wanted this deep down, you didn't have a choice._ Donna pulled her hand free, then hugged him. And snickered. _You keep telling yourself that, Spaceman._

_You're my best friend, Donna. And, arguing about whose bits are the weird bits aside, there are so many options that would be worse than being married to my best friend who I've come to love._ He grinned and hugged her back, then shared that grin with his son. His son - he had a family!

He was going to have to come up with a proper punishment for his son, though. But that could wait until the loose ends were tidied away, and he could consult with Donna. The one thing he knew he couldn't do was separate him from Donna - not when he was probably the only thing keeping her from burning at this time.

_Yeah. You could be stuck like this with my mum. _ Donna giggled in his arms at the thought. Being in his head, or having his head in hers... either way it was giving her a whole new outlook on her barmy Spaceman. They were going to have a lot to talk about, later.

_Donna! There's no reason to be disgusting about it! _ A sudden thought, triggered by the mention of her mother, made him cringe. _Oh bugger. You're going to make me tell her about us, aren't you? _ He whined in her head and buried his face in her hair. That was the downside, if there was a downside to marrying Donna. Other than the accidental nature of it, anyway. He had -her- family too, and they would be peeved at him marrying her like this, especially for not telling them.

_We can tell her together, Sunshine. Besides, you're a big hero now, towing the Earth home...it'll be all right, you'll see. _She reached out an arm and drew their son into the hug so he wouldn't feel left out. Family - even a bonkers one like this - was something to be treasured.

* * *

Vignette 4 - Journey's End - Killer Queen

* * *

Rose glowered at the ginger cow and the clone of the Doctor that the bitch had the gall to call his son. How dare they try and force themselves on the Doctor as his family? He was _hers_, not that fat bint's, and it was past time she put a stop to this!

She hadn't worked all these years to come back and find the Doctor just to let him be claimed by a stupid, useless, fat old twat of a ginger temp. No, he was hers and she was his, and as soon as she had the chance to explain things properly, whatever Donna had done to him would be undone, and everything would be perfect again, with just him and her.

She'd just have to get the bitch out of the way first. And she had the perfect way too - everyone was so distracted in celebrating Earth's return that nobody noticed her pick up her gun from where Mickey had left it.

Not until she had it raised and aimed straight at Donna. "Back away from him, bitch!"

"Rose, put the gun down," the Doctor said, as calmly as possible. He was screaming inside, but he couldn't let that show even if a bit of it leaked to his new son and Donna.

"No! She's bewitched you or somethin' with all the reality-bending she does, Doctor. If she won't move away from you, then you move away from her!" Rose was not going to put up with not getting her goal when it was in sight. And if she could get him to believe that lie, so much the better.

"Not again," Donna groaned, but stepped away from the Doctor. "There. I'm away from him."

To the side, their metacrisis son was watching with fear tensing his muscles. Rose couldn't be about to do what he thought she was...could she? "Rose, just calm down-"

"Shut up you clone!" Rose snapped. "An' don't any of the rest of you try an' disarm me either," she added and primed the gun. "Try it and she's dead."

Once everyone had backed far enough away to satisfy her, Rose gestured Donna further away from the Doctor with the barrel of the gun. "You ruined everything, but getting rid of you will make it all better."

"I'm not bending reality," Donna tried, speaking softly as she took another step to the side. "That was all Dalek Caan, twisting timelines to bring me and the Doctor together so we'd eliminate the Daleks for him."

"Shut up!" Rose screamed, finger tensed on the trigger guard. "You don't get any rights here!"

"Rose, please, just put the gun down," the Doctor tried once more to reason with the girl who was breaking his hearts with what she was doing. How could she think this was any sort of acceptable?

"I've got to do this, Doctor. So you can be free to be with me." Rose smiled at him, then turned back to Donna. And pulled the trigger.

* * *

Vignette 5 - Journey's End - Life Finds a Way

* * *

The Doctor screamed a denial, but after the flash of the weapon's plasma-beam had died, he saw that Donna was sprawled on the floor, intact. It was his son, who'd pushed his mother out of the way, who was lying there injured, dying, with a burn mark on his side indicating where the blast had gone right through him, as indicated by a burn-mark on the TARDIS wall.

He ran to his son's side and oh-so-gently rolled him into his own arms, barely noting Donna scrambling to join him. "No! Oh no no no no no, not again!" he cried, tears beginning to track down his cheeks. "I can't lose another child, not again!"

"Oh my God," Donna gasped as she got close enough to see exactly where the beam had hit. "You saved me...did you know you were gonna get hit?"

"Yeah," their son gasped out. "...druther this way 'nyway..."

"Why?" The Doctor asked, one corner of his awareness noting that Rose was disarmed and Jack was handcuffing her. But she wasn't relevant, now that she was restrained. His son was.

"...too much of you...too much of mum...confusing..."

Donna stroked his cheek, tears raining unnoticed down her cheeks. "Sweetheart, your dad can fix that. Just hold on, all right?"

"...too much...damage...no r'gen'ratin...no...time..." Their son's eyes got hazy and huge, trying to focus but failing.

Donna and the Doctor looked at each other as the same idea hit them simultaneously. "Regeneration!" Donna yelped. "We get the Time Lord bits out of me and back into him, he can regenerate!"

"Brilliant!" The Doctor grinned at his new-minted wife, then looked back at his son. "You hold on, my son. Your parents are going to pull off another miracle!"

"...kay..." His voice was a feeble whisper, but the mind and spirit were stubborn enough to damn well stick around until he saw what his parents were going to do.

Which was, in the beginning, to the observers nothing more than enter into a mind-link. But the Doctor had to help Donna scrape the Time Lord bits out of her head, because they were stubbornly refusing to move on their own.

Once that was done, Donna stared at the Doctor with glowing golden eyes, one last second to see him as his equal. Then she bent over and blew that Time Lord magnificence into their instant-grown son in one long golden wisp of energy.

Then they watched, frowning, as nothing happened. Until the Doctor smacked his head, and shouted. "Of course! It needed a trigger last time, it needs a trigger this time!"

"What, touch? Like last time?" Donna asked, confused. "But...we're both touching him already, aren't we?"

"No, not touch." It was his turn to smile with luminescence hidden in the depths of his eyes. "Ten years off my life should be enough!" He gently lifted his son, then took a deep breath and sacrificed another ten years in one drawn-out exhale, fanning the flames of stalled regeneration that no one but he could sense.

This time, something happened. Their instant son started to glow, and the Doctor gently laid him on the floor, then had to have Donna's help to scramble away when it got brighter.

"Doctor? What's happening?" Jack asked, finally perceiving a place where an interruption wouldn't be fatal.

"My son is half-Human, Jack. That means he couldn't regenerate when Rose shot him. What Donna did was sacrifice her chance to be like me, to give him back the Time Lord bits that had split from him to her, and then I gave ten years off my life to spark off the regeneration."

The Doctor, all this time, had been watching his son, and his puzzled frown rapidly morphed to panic as the glowing form began to shrink. And kept shrinking. "No, no, no, no, no! You can't!"

"Doctor, wait a moment," Donna said, holding his arm to keep him from getting hurt from the...well, whatever was happening. "Look, the glow's going away, let's see what happened."

Trembling with fear all over again, the Doctor knelt beside his apparently empty blue suit and gently picked up the still form buried in the burgundy t-shirt. Then he was trembling for another reason entirely as it wriggled and squirmed, and a baby's wail shattered the silence. "Oh, there, there my son. No reason to scream so loud," he murmured as he gently uncovered a squalling male infant. "Aww, look at you!" He looked up at Donna, grinning like a loon. "Look at what we did, Donna!"

"Doctor, how is he a baby? He grew from a hand into an adult...so how...?" Donna wriggled the t-shirt out of the Doctor's arms and folded it once so they could wrap the baby in it.

"I'm not sure, but I'll bet it's cos he was only an hour old," He grinned at her, then checked to make sure his name hadn't been purged from her head with the rest of his mind. _You...you're all right with that, aren't you? I mean, him being a baby._

"Not getting it, Doctor," Donna said, then rolled her eyes when she felt the familiar mental touch. _It's loads better than him being dead! But you didn't answer my question!_

"Oh, right, right," he said and let her help him wrap their son in the t-shirt, then reluctantly let her hold him. Of course, if he hadn't let her hold him, he'd never have noticed that their son now had ginger in his fine baby hair. And that was brilliant! "See, he was only an hour old, then because of both of us he regenerated. But he also indicated he was having trouble from having our minds in his head, so he wanted to have something done about that, so the regeneration responded to that desire and made him an hour-old infant!" _There, see? I did so answer your question!_

"I'm gonna assume that's not the way regeneration usually works?" Donna raised an arch eyebrow. "I mean, it's not like the next time you regenerate you're gonna be a thousand and something physically, right? Or regress to a kid?"

"Nope," he gleefully said, popping the 'p' as he let his son hold his finger. "This one was special. And confusing. And unique. And will probably never happen again." _And required me to give him a bit of my life. Not that I mind, I did it for the TARDIS, I'd have done it for Jenny if I'd thought of it in time... he's my son, so of course I'd give my life for him._

"I'll say it was confusing," Donna muttered, then gently shifted their son away from her breasts. "Sorry sweetheart, nothing there for you." _I wish Jenny could've been here...ah well. So, genius, how're we going to feed him?_

"Ah, hate to interrupt this lovely family moment - and yes we've already got pictures," Jack said, grinning, glad that Mickey had thought to gag Rose so she couldn't interrupt. "But what's the new addition's name going to be?"

"William Tyrell," Donna said, then blustered at the Doctor's raised eyebrow. "What? William means both determined and protection, and he gave his life in his determination to protect me! And Tyrell cos he was too stubborn to die before he saw what we were gonna do to save him."

"I was just wondering why you left Noble off," he said, mildly. "It's a tradition that the man takes the woman's surname, among my people." _Oh, and as for feeding him...well, if you don't mind, we can nip down to the medbay and stimulate your breasts so he can be fed naturally._

"I...I...oh, all right, if you're going to insist, 'Doctor Noble'." She gave him a sceptical look, then turned to Jack. "His name's William Tyrell Noble." _You just want to see my tits again, I knew it, you are __such__ a bloke. _ But her mental voice was full of warm teasing instead of sharp attitude.

_And I'm going to envy our son every second of his association with your magnificent breasts,_ the Doctor answered honestly, albeit with humour in his mental voice. "Of course I insist - Mrs. Noble." He gave her a cheeky grin, then got to his feet and helped Donna up. "Martha, Sarah Jane, if I could get you to help Donna and our Will into the medbay? I've got a few things I need to deal with."

From the direction of his glare, no one could mistake who he was going to deal with.

* * *

Vignette 6 - Journey's End - Anatomy lesson

* * *

AN - I thought I should explain this vignette a bit. I seem to have a Thing for making Time Lords evolve from cetacean life forms rather than land dwelling mammals, and I did it here too, with a teensy bit more detail this time. So brace yourselves for some alien weirdness :D

Anything medical, save for the fact that yes, baby boys do try to pee on anyone changing their diapers, is pulled out of my ear.

* * *

"So, Donna. What's all that with the two of you calling each other Doctor and Mrs Noble? I thought you two weren't like that?" Martha asked in between Donna's instructions that were directing her on what to do so the ginger could breast-feed her brand-new son.

"And you're wondering how I can tell you what to do, I'll bet," Donna said with a smirk as she peeled off her blouse and bra, inadvertently giving Sarah Jane a spot of bother as Will started wriggling vigorously. Donna sucked in a hissing breath at the first injection, then continued.

"Well, it's cos I had his head in mine...and that lead through Time Lord weirdness to us ending up married. Don't ask how, it's really confusing to try and understand why that bit stayed when most of the the rest of it's gone. But we're still married - that and a few other things stuck when we shoved the Time Lord half back to Will. So he told me what to tell you to do telepathically, so he didn't have to put the Rose issue on hold."

"And if it didn't need injections in hard-to-reach places you could do it yourself?" Martha asked with a raised eyebrow as she applied the last one of those injections into Donna's right tricep. "Lie down now...and I scanned Will before we started, but he's still half-Human."

"Yeah, pretty much. Dunno why he's still half-Human though...maybe cos it was all mental, the Time Lord half I sent back to him, and that's why the Doctor had to sacrifice a bit of his life?" Donna shrugged as she laid back so Martha could use some of the gizmos on her chest.

She glanced over at Sarah Jane, who was looking relieved as Will stopped wriggling quite so much. "Okay over there?"

"Pretty much," she replied with a smile. "Someone's gone and unwrapped himself with all his wiggling though," she added, then as she looked down at the adorable infant, gasped with eyes wide.

"What's wrong," Martha asked, unable to look because she was occupied with a localised time dilation device and Donna's torso. "Did he try and crawl off the table?"

"Ah, no," Sarah Jane replied. "I could use your assistance when you've finished, though...Donna's too."

"What's wrong with Will?" The only thing that kept Donna from leaping to find out what was going on was that she had to lay still another few minutes while the treatments got her ready to feed her son.

"I...well, I'm not sure anything's wrong with him, per se. It's just...well, I'm not sure if 'him' is accurate," came the tentative reply.

Martha made sure everything would tend to itself properly, and turn off when it should, then went over to take a look. While Will did, mostly, look just like a Human infant, she could see why Sarah Jane was confused as to the actual sex of the child. There wasn't the expected miniature penis, just a slit. It didn't look like an infant girl's bits, either. Martha almost thought it looked like a dolphin's genital slit, and out of curiosity, she checked to see if his anus was a slit as well. That annoyed little Will, and the two women barely got the t-shirt in place before his penis poked out his genital slit and tried to pee all over them.

"Ah, I'd say he's a boy all right," Martha commented with a wry smile.

"Yes, definitely a boy." After he'd finished, Sarah Jane found some wipes beside her, then cleaned him up. "Very naughty boy."

"They do that all the time when being changed, or so I remember from my brother complaining about my nephew," Martha grinned, then shook her head. "Never knew Time Lords were so different down there, though."

"Different?" Donna asked, though she thought she knew what they were talking about. She'd seen the Doctor nude before, right after they'd left Midnight.

"Um...little Will - and we're assuming his daddy too - has a genital slit. Like a dolphin," Martha managed not to stammer, but she was blushing. And very glad she'd gotten over the Doctor. She'd never have been able to handle this.

"Oh, that. Yeah, it was a bit of a shock, seeing a slit instead of the usual bits, but I knew he was alien," Donna said, then sat up in relief when the process finished. "Ooh, bit dizzy - bring him here?"

"You've seen him naked?" Came from both women, even as Sarah Jane wrapped Will in a blanket to bring to his mother.

"Yeah. It was after he'd been through a horrible time, and he was being exceptionally clingy. Don't ever tell him I told you that, though, he'd die of embarrassment. Anyway, I had to be by his side at all times for several days, so that meant showers too." Donna accepted the wrapped bundle and put him to her breast, then sighed in relief as the pressure eased once her son latched on.

"Oh God, I'm going to sound like such a nosy cow...but what's that difference in genitalia going to mean for the two of you, now that you're married?" Martha asked, blushing a bit in embarrassment.

"Dunno," Donna mimed a shrug with her head, since her arms were occupied. "Other than my tits - and how he became such a tit man I'll never know - it isn't like he thought much of my bits either. Too much hair, he said. Guess we'll figure that out later, though. Once we've gotten used to the whole 'instantly married with a baby' bit."

She smirked as she stroked her son's auburn wisps of hair. "For all that he's so alien, he's still a bloke though - on one level, he's kicking himself right now for having to deal with issues rather than getting the chance to gawp at my tits. Again."

The softest thump interrupted what might have been said next, and Sarah Jane started for the door. "I don't mean to be rude and run off, but I've a boy of my own and he's too young to be left alone any longer."

"Well, he'll have to hold out at least ten more minutes," Donna said quickly, before Sarah Jane could leave the medbay. "We're not on Earth - we're in the parallel world."

Martha bit her lip because, though Donna should at least look content nursing her son, she was looking incredibly miserable instead. "What are we doing there?" She finally managed to whisper.

"Other than taking Jackie back to her husband and kids?" Donna sniffed back a tear. "He's...well, he's making sure Rose can't ever come back again. Punishing her with permanent exile for all the crimes she's committed, and since she was so...stubborn about crossing over the first time, he's had to alter parts of her brain so she can't come back, ever, no matter what she tries."

"She's not taking that well, is she?" Sarah Jane sighed and made her way back to Donna and Martha, who'd taken up a tissue to blot Donna's face with.

"No." Donna sighed, then gave Martha a watery smile for blotting her face so she wouldn't drip on Will.

"What are the two of you going to do now?" Martha asked, absently running one last scan on Donna and Will, after Donna'd managed to stop crying.

"Three of us, counting this'un," Donna corrected with a sad smile. Then she sighed and adjusted the exam bed so it would let her lean back but be mostly upright. "Not that Will can make decisions yet. I dunno, I guess we'll carry on, figure out how Will's going to change things...figure out how things'll be different between us, now. What with the sudden marriage and all."

"You're welcome to stay with us while you two figure it all out, if you need to," Sarah said with a sad, understanding smile. "Luke and I would welcome the company...although," she managed a laugh. "The Doctor might not appreciate the constant questions."

"Never know," Donna managed to smile back at the woman the Doctor had mentioned so often with such fondness. "He might love the distraction. But, while I'd relish a break before we go tell my mum...it's just not fair on her, even if I haven't a clue yet how to explain Will and everything."

The TARDIS went 'bong' then, and Donna tilted her head for a moment, listening to something the other two couldn't hear. "We're on the way back now."

"Then say you'll visit us, when everything's settled," Sarah Jane said with a smile as she held Will while Donna got her blouse back on.

"That's an easy promise to make," Donna grinned as she took Will back. Then the three women headed back to the console room, wondering what they'd find there.

* * *

Vignette 7 - Journey's End - Crime and Punishment

* * *

AN: Angry vindictive Doctor warning.

Once Donna had left with Will and Martha and Sarah Jane, the Doctor stalked over to Rose and glared at her. "No point in taking the gag off, you'll only lie to me again, and I've got no more patience for your games, Rose."

Her eyes went huge, and she made muffled noises of protest as his hands came up and his fingers gripped the contact points nearly hard enough to cause pain. He didn't notice, nor care - there were answers that needed to be had from this murderer who'd nearly destroyed everything. Including all his thoughts and fond memories of her.

Five minutes later, he pulled away and took several deep breaths to try and regain control. As it was, he was still very angry when he began to speak. "Rose Tyler, you disgust me. How could you think that I'd be pleased with you potentially destroying several universes just to be with me again? When did I ever give you the impression that death and destruction was a GOOD THING?!"

Another few breaths, and he was capable of continuing. "And if that wasn't bad enough, you decided to work with the Trickster's Brigade to get everything working! Creatures that seek chaos and destruction! But that doesn't matter to you, does it? Nothing ever matters to you except getting what you want and damn the consequences!" He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. "I should have left you back with your mother after the disaster you created when I took you back to see your father, but I was too screwed up from the war, too damned lonely to want to go back to solitude."

Jack and Mickey shared a glance at that statement. They both knew the Doctor, and if he was swearing, even just a simple 'damn', then he was beyond angry and well into furious. Wordlessly they came to an agreement that they'd keep a sharp eye to make sure he didn't go into blind rage and actually hit Rose.

A bitter chuckle later and the Doctor curled his lip in a sneer as he finally finished his rant at Rose. "Half of this is my fault for indulging you...but you, Rose Tyler, oh, you take the cake with your obsessions. Do you know what would happen if I was going to let you stay in this universe? You'd be dropped off at the Shadow Proclamation with all the evidence of your crimes, and it's even odds whether they'd execute you or imprison you forever."

At Jackie's pained whimper, he gave her a sad smile. "It's all right, Jackie. I'm not going to do that. It won't be easy on you though - she'll be trapped in the parallel world with you for the rest of her life."

"But...how's that going to work?" Mickey asked, confused, but relieved that the Doctor seemed to have a handle on his anger now. "I mean, even if you destroy the dimensional cannon, you won't have time to find all the copies of the plans for it. She'll just be at it again."

"You'll see," was all he said, other than a request for their jump-buttons and the occasional instruction to Jack and Mickey as he used the signals from the buttons to pilot the TARDIS through the remaining gap to Pete's World.

Once he'd landed the Old Girl, he walked over to where Rose had fallen and picked her up. Then, once she was on her feet again, he went into her mind again and finished up his task by running the sonic screwdriver over her head. "Right, that's done. Jack, Jackie, Mickey, let's get her out of here."

Once they were outside, the Doctor removed the gag from Rose's mouth, but before she could speak he started talking again. "Now I want you to listen closely to me, Rose Tyler, because your very life depends on it. What I've done to you is altered the very composition of your brain - if you ever attempt to use the dimensional cannon again, or any other method of travelling universe to universe, the energy of the method of travel interacting with your own bio-electric field will cause you to suffer a brain aneurysm. A lethal one. This is your punishment for all your crimes - permanent exile without even a hope of return. Life imprisonment without parole."

He turned away from Rose and motioned Jack back into the TARDIS, but paused when Rose wailed. "But I love you! And if you'd just get rid of Donna, you'd realise you love me too!"

He turned back around, and missed Mickey sneaking into the TARDIS behind his back. "Love? You don't love me. You don't even love the idea of me you have in your head, you only want to own that Humanish bloke with a time-travelling box that you think I am. As for me loving you? Perhaps, once. But that was before you became a murderer. Before you callously destroyed countless lives because they didn't matter to you as long as you got what you wanted."

He turned away again, but paused on the threshold and looked over his shoulder with an icy glare. "And as for me getting rid of Donna? She's my wife - I would sooner cut off my arms than get rid of her. And that's the cherry on the whipped topping on your punishment, Rose. If you'd never done any of this, it's possible that I'd never have ended up married to Donna."

He entered the TARDIS and shut the door, blocking out the screams of denial, then strode to the console and began the work of returning them to their own universe. A part of him wondered why Jack was trying to repress a smirk, but he didn't bother with it until they'd got back home and he'd made sure the last crack was sealed.

Once he'd landed, in a park near the church he'd parked by what felt like days ago, he raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny, Jack?"

"Got a stowaway, Doctor." He grinned and motioned up, where Mickey was rising to his knees on the catwalk that circled half the console room.

"Mickey?! What are you doing up there? No, more important, what are you doing in here at all? I thought you'd adjusted to Pete's World!"

"Nothing there for me now, Boss. Hasn't been since my gran passed on...died in a mansion, she did, but after she was gone...well." He shrugged, then made a face. "And don't even mention Rose - she did her damndest to destroy every relationship I managed to start. Even though she was obsessed with you, she still couldn't stand me moving on to anyone else." Mickey sighed and hopped down from the catwalk. "So, d'you blame me for wanting to get away from that?"

The Doctor sighed and ran his hand through his hair, then shook his head with a wan smile. "No. No, I don't blame you. Question is, what are you going to do now?"

"Eh, I dunno. Might see if Captain Cheesecake could use an extra hand." Mickey smiled, and the Doctor was struck by how it looked like the smile of a prisoner who'd finally served his time and was let out into the sun. "I've got my whole life ahead of me, I'll figure something out."

"I could probably use an extra hand, so long as you can handle me as your boss, Mickey Mouse. Oh, and that's Beefcake," Jack said with a grin. Sounded like the kid had gone through hell and grown up from it - he'd fit in just fine with Torchwood. And if not, he could always hit up Martha for a UNIT post.

"Could do. We'll see how it works out, yeah?" Mickey grinned and fist-bumped both men as the women came back from the bowels of the TARDIS.

* * *

Vignette 8 - Journey's End - Home at Last

* * *

After tidying up the loose ends, especially with the Architect, and acquiring baby supplies, the Doctor heaved a sigh as he parked the TARDIS in back of the Noble-Mott residence. "Hang on a moment, Donna. It's raining outside, I'll need to get a big umbrella."

"And a couple pairs of wellies," Donna said as she got a glimpse at the monitor, currently displaying a torrential downpour. "Don't want to get our feet soaked even if you manage to keep the rest of us dry."

After that comment and some further thought, the three of them eventually knocked on the backdoor of her granddad's house, Donna in a mackintosh and a rain hat as well as being under the umbrella and wearing wellies.

Once inside, the Doctor ignored Sylvia's squawking and fluttering as he closed the huge umbrella, then helped Donna out of the mackintosh and hat and wellies.

"Oh my word," Sylvia breathed as the Doctor took the rain-gear off Donna to reveal her holding a baby boy. "Now where'd this little man come from?"

"Long story, Mum. Could we have a cuppa? And maybe something to eat? It's been ages since our last meal." In her arms, Will blinked sleepy eyes open and yawned, and Donna chuckled. "Well, not him, he had a feed just over an hour ago."

"Actually, it's a bit closer to three with the running about we've been doing," the Doctor said as he pulled a chair out for Donna. "He'll be wanting another feed and a nappy-change soon."

"Is it?" Donna looked up at him, curiously. "It didn't feel that long."

"A bit over an hour straightening out the Architect, then that brief visit with Sarah Jane to make sure she and her son were all right, and then tracking down those rifles from the parallel universe to keep them out of the wrong hands. And then we spent nearly an hour and a half popping back to buy Will the starter kit." The Doctor smiled wryly at the identical snorts from both women in the room, and sat down.

"Who's this Architect you're gabbling about?" Sylvia snapped out, even as she was gathering tea and sandwich makings. "And why'd you have to spend time straightening anything out with him? And what's that got to do with how come the pair of you have a baby?"

"We'll get there, Mum. And the Architect's a she...well, looks like a woman, anyway. Keeper of Galactic Laws, or somesuch like that." Donna smiled her thanks as her mum put together a half-sandwich for her. It'd be easier to eat and keep hold of Will than a whole one.

"A lot of which got violated today...but like I said, it's all straightened out now." He sipped at the tea that'd been placed in front of him, then sighed. "At any rate, best to tell you in order."

"Aye aye, just pick up from where that teleporting blonde with the big gun left us, unless important things happened before that." Wilf said as he sat down.

And the Doctor and Donna took up telling the tale of exactly what had happened, from the time Rose showed up to the time he'd punished Rose for her murderous tendencies and left her in that parallel world.

"But I still don't understand," Sylvia said as she gently cradled her brand-new grandson she'd managed to steal from her daughter. "How does all that make you pair married? And how was exile punishment for that horrible beastly girl trying to murder our Donna?"

"The marriage bit's a Time Lord thing, Mum. Nothing legal's been done on Earth yet, but according to Galactic Law and Time Lord customs, we're married. As for Rose..." Donna trailed off and snorted. "The Architect asked the same thing - how is exile a proper punishment?"

"Donna explains it better than I," the Doctor said as Will started fussing and his mum took him back and into the other room. "But she's going to be busy for a bit. Basically, the exile's a punishment not only because I made sure she'd die if she tried to escape, but because I'm the one who made the choices. The choice to leave her behind, the choice to ensure she could never be a danger again - that was all my doing. And she's going to have to live with the knowledge that I chose to leave her there for the rest of her life."

"As pigheaded as she seemed when she was here at our home, acting like she was better than anyone else who ever travelled with you, I'll not be surprised if her mother manages to send you a message saying the brat killed herself trying to get back to you."

"She wouldn't be able to. Send a message, I mean," the Doctor said with a sad sigh. "All the cracks are sealed. And I still don't know if I did the right thing...the Architect was furious with me for leaving Rose in that parallel world instead of bringing her back for trial and execution, until Donna got her to accept that exile to that parallel world was a worse punishment. But I couldn't do that to Jackie, I couldn't take her only daughter away like that. She deserved better, and now she's got the chance to maybe get through to Rose."

"It's the never knowing if Rose is still so obsessed she'd kill herself trying to get back that's bothering him," Donna said from the other room. "But at least when he explained to the Architect that Rose couldn't leave that universe because she'd die of the trying, she calmed down and stopped trying to punish him. It's imprisonment with punishment, just like if she'd been stuck in Cyberia - that's a virtual reality prison where prisoners are punished severely all the time, but in their heads. No marks left on their bodies."

"I think that was more your doing than mine," the Doctor said and chuckled wryly. "I don't do well with authority figures. They get up my nose, as Donna says."

"But it's all over and done with now?" Sylvia asked as the Doctor got up. "No more problems?"

"Well, no more galactic or universal problems for a while," he smiled at her as he headed into the other room. "Just some domestic ones."

"Which he's actually relishing, don't let him fool you," Donna said, grinning, as she came back into the kitchen. "He's looking forward to making things legal on Earth, and learning how to be part of a proper family."

"That's all well and good, but what's the little'un's name then?" Wilf asked, half-covering the Doctor's exclamation of surprise and shock from the other room.

"Oh, we didn't tell you that, did we?" Donna snickered as the sounds of the Doctor scolding his son about being a fire-hose came drifting from the other room, then smiled at her mum and granddad. "His name's William Tyrell, cos he protected me from Rose, and he was too stubborn to die."

"William Tyrell Noble. Not a bad name. And it's good that he got named before his father changed him the first time, otherwise he'd probably be named something to do with geysers or something like that." Sylvia smirked.

Donna laughed for no reason her family could see, then trailed off into snickers shaking her head. "Oh, he's tempted, believe me. Course, he could've listened to me when I told him baby boys do that..."

"Some things will only be learned by experiencing them. Seems like only one nurse in three will listen to warnings doing the antenatal rounds." Sylvia smirked, then raised an eyebrow at the extra rustling from the other room.

Rustling that was explained when the Doctor came back in wearing a different shirt, no tie, and carrying his giggling son.

"I told you so, Spaceman," Donna smirked as she took her son back and almost immediately offered him to her granddad so she could eat.

"Yes, and now I'm properly told again," he sulked as he sat back down and started eating.

"Here now," Wilf said as he finally got a really good look at his great-grandson. "I thought you said he looked the twin of his dad when he was older, Donna. He looks like he's got your dad's chin."

Sylvia leaned over to look and smiled. "So he does. Geoff's chin, his daddy's nose and cheekbones, and his mummy's hair and eyes."

"Those will probably darken," the Doctor said. "He's only a few hours old, and when he was adult, his eyes looked like mine."

"Oh you peanut," Donna snorted and patted his hand. "He regenerated, remember? So he went from being Daddy's twin to someone more like a blend of both of us. It's better that way, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he murmured, then beamed at her. "Yeah, it is better that way."

"So, when can we expect another?" Sylvia asked as she took over cuddling her grandson again.

"Mu-um!" Donna groaned and buried her face in her hands. Muffled, she continued. "Can't we get used to all this instant marriage and parenthood first?"

"Oh, I suppose we could give you a few months," Sylvia said with a positively evil smirk.

"Aye aye, what happened to not scaring them off?" Wilf asked his daughter with a frown.

"Oh Dad, they're married. It's a lot sooner than I thought it would be, I'll admit, but they're married. Now all they need to do is make it legal on Earth, and figure out how things will work. I mean, there's bound to be some issues, what with them both being alien to each other biologically."

The Doctor gave Donna a pleading look, complete with puppy-eyes. "I don't suppose we could just run off and elope, or something?"

"No. If we were going to do that, we should've done it before we came home." Donna rolled her eyes at her husband - so weird, calling the Doctor her husband! But it felt good, too, like coming home.

Then she frowned at her mother. "But it's not going to be a big to-do. Had one of those already, even if his ship kidnapped me right out of the middle of it."

"All right. I'll help you put together a small wedding..." Sylvia trailed off at the Doctor's fidgets and scowled at him. "And don't tell me you were thinking about just doing it at the Registrar's!"

"Ye...no...it's just..." The Doctor trailed off with a frustrated sigh. "I'm rubbish at weddings - just look at how we got married!"

"What, married by accident?" Donna snickered tiredly. "Don't tell me you were thinking about doing some romantic proposal, down on one knee and everything."

"Well, no, not necessarily down on one knee and everything. I just," He blew out a breath that fluttered his lips, and sighed again. "I just wanted you to have everything you wanted."

"Silly Spaceman," Donna smiled fondly and took his hand, twining her fingers with his. "Accident or not, I've got everything I want, right here. My family, complete with a husband who loves me, and our son. The rest of it? Wedding and all that? That's just frills."

"Yeah, the rest of that is all just frills." The Doctor beamed and leaned over to give Donna a tender and loving kiss.

Sylvia let that go on for about half a minute before she cleared her throat. "It's pouring down outside, and I'll not have you exposing my grandson to that wet and chill again. Dad, help Donna with the attic and finding her old cradle. Handmade, it should be usable once we get it cleaned up. You - what do I call you now, anyway? Doctor, like before?"

"Well, you could do that, yeah. I'm used to it. But since I'm your son-in-law now, you could call me John. And yes, it's not just a name dragged out of a hat - I've got papers." He gave his mother in law a tentative smile as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"John Smith, I'll bet. Well, better than Joe Bloggs, I suppose. But what Donna will think of being a Smith..."

"Oh! Oh, no, no, no, she won't be a Smith. The culture of my people means I take her surname. So it's me that's changing, from John Smith to John Noble." He grinned at Sylvia, then raised an eyebrow. "But what were you going to suggest I do, before what to call me distracted you?"

"Oh, yes. Well, I was going to suggest you go up to Donna's room and clean out a space for the cradle. She'll want to keep him close for a while, and the spare room's a mess anyway. But on second thought, you'll go up with Dad for the cradle, because Donna will know how much space needs to be cleared for it. Oh, I hadn't thought - did you pick up any bedding?"

"We've got bedding, yep." The Doctor stood and smiled at his sleeping son in his grandmother's arms. "The baby bag is bigger on the inside. Well, come on Wilfred. Show me the attic so I can bring the cradle down."

As her family scattered on their assigned tasks, Sylvia looked down at the bundle in her arms and sighed, wishing that her husband could have been here to see this moment.

A moment that would never have come about if an utterly mad, Twilight Zone moment hadn't happened two years ago.

* * *

Ending AN: And that's it. The end of the Turn Left?! universe. Well, unless of course more inspiration strikes... but don't hold your breaths. I've got way too much else on my plate to even think about more of this story for a long time.


End file.
